It has been awarded funding from the British Council for research into early childhood education in Indonesia and the UK and from the Department for Education to be a service provider for the International Qualified Teaching Status (iQTS) programme.
The British Council funded project aims to improve teacher quality by developing child-led approaches to teaching sustainability in the UK and Indonesia. The grant will enable researchers to support early years teaching students to develop culturally viable child-centred practices for learning about sustainability. The project brings together the University of Portsmouth, Universitas Surabaya in Indonesia and selected early years settings in both countries.
The University was also successful in its bid to the Department for Education (DfE) to be a provider of the iQTS programme from September 2023.
The iQTS programme is a new one-year postgraduate course with the same entry criteria as English Initial Teacher Training, which leads to the automatic award of QTS. The teaching qualification is backed by the UK government.
Jacqueline Priego, Interim Associate Dean Global Engagement in the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, said: "The approval by the DfE to be a provider of iQTS confirms our reputation as a global institution with an excellent track record in training the next generation of teachers. Our involvement in the programme will further raise our profile to global audiences who will now have access to this teaching qualification."
