Profile: Megan Haggerty, MA (2007)
Adult Education and Community Development
Many new doors were opened for me through my M.A. in Adult Ed and the Collaborative CIDE Programme. I came into OISE in 2004 as an ‘ESL’ expat, with an undergrad in International Development from the University of Calgary. In my second semester at OISE, I got involved in the beginning of the Canadian Global Campaign for Education (CGCE), which was just being founded by Karen Mundy (AECP/CIDE). I became the CGCE’s first coordinator and then Project Manager, and with the help of many others produced the national “Send my Friend to School” curriculum and then the “Every Child Needs a Teacher” curriculum. These works aimed to teach Canadian children about the right to education and international crisis in educational access, quality and equity, and give them the tools to join other children around the world in advocating for Education For All.
I wove this activist/advocacy stream into my thesis, which explored a national education network's impact on education policy in Tanzania. I had the pleasure of working with Karen Mundy and Daniel Schugurensky – both world-class academics and leaders in their fields.
Since graduating, I have been consulting, advocating for and writing to improve international support (particularly Canadian support) for quality education in Southern countries. The connections I made at OISE and since have given me the opportunity to work with CIDA, the CGCE, the Consultative Group on ECCD, and UNICEF-Canada.
And for the next 6 months? I have my dream job of being a World Bank consultant - co-writing a book for policymakers that compares policies on teachers in 8 countries in Africa - slowly making an impact from the inside-out.