Nolutho Diko
School of Education
Indiana University

I am a South African national studying toward a PhD degree in Educational Leadership and Policy Studies at Indiana University. My area of concentration is International Comparative Education. As a teacher I spent nine years in teaching and administrative positions in South African High Schools. In 1994 I got an opportunity to move on to teacher development. At this time, this field was well developed outside the government but very much in its infancy in the government sphere. As a Project Manager of an education NGO catering to rural and farm schools development, I had an opportunity to work as a consultant for both the provincial and the national government. The highlights of this period were my involvement in the design, development, and evaluation of training materials used to train elementary school teachers in Outcomes Based Education.

Here in the US I have had the privilege to work with hard working professors. Through my association with them I have been involved in two major research projects. The one that stands out in my memory is the evaluation of the federally funded Ohio Reads Project. As a result of my participation in this project, between January and April this year I was appointed by the University of Fort Hare as a lead researcher to conduct a baseline study for the implementation of the Educational Leadership and Management Program in the Eastern Cape Province, South Africa. Currently, I am working on a very exciting research on School reform and the education of girls in South Africa.