About Us

Jennifer Agbaire

Jennifer is both an academic and a practitioner with almost 15 years of experience in education and international development. Her work through the years has involved collaboration and partnerships with various local and international organizations, including IIEP-UNESCO, SUMMA, Worldreader, CEHURD, Ahaki and FIT-ED. As an academic , she has worked in teaching and research roles in several higher education institutions – from the University of Benin, Nigeria,  where she  led the curriculum development and teaching of Comparative Education and convened and taught separate undergraduate and postgraduate courses on the sociology, philosophy and the history of education, to  the University of Sussex, the University  of Bristol and the Open University in the UK where  she actively contributed to teaching and research in international education and development while also initiating and managing several funded impact  projects.  Her multi- and inter- disciplinary work have involved projects funded by agencies such as the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), Canada as well as the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)  among others.  Her work and experience span access, quality, policy, leadership, teaching and teacher education for development across all levels of education and with a great focus on Global South contexts in Africa, Asia and South America – from Kenya, Uganda, Burkina-faso, Nigeria and South Africa to Jordan, Iraq, Pakistan, India, Nepal, Chile and the Philippines.

Jennifer is an Associate Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (AFHEA). She is a Trustee and the Executive Secretary of the British Association for International and Comparative Education (BAICE), and a co-convener of the BAICE 2022 conference in Edinburgh, UK. She is also a peer reviewer for the Comparative Education Review journal run by the Comparative and International Education Society (CIES) in the USA. She holds a B.A (Ed) degree in English and Literature Education with First Class Honours from the University of Benin, an M.Ed in Comparative Education from the University of Lagos,  a Certificate in Management from the Nigerian Institute of Management and a Postgraduate Certificate in Social Research Methods from the University of Sussex, UK,  where she also obtained her PhD in International Education and Development researching Nigerian education policy for fair access and drawing on global debates around the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Olaoluwa Abagun

Olaoluwa is a lawyer, gender and international development expert. She is the Executive Director of ATHENA Network, a global feminist collective which works to advance gender equality and centre the voices of adolescent girls and young women in the global HIV response.

Ola has over seven years of experience in grassroots and high-level gender equality advocacy, facilitating participatory processes with young people, and programme management on sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) issues, girls’ education, and gender-based violence. In 2014, she founded Girl Pride Circle Initiative, a girls’ rights advocacy NGO based in Nigeria. From 2019 – 2021, she served as the Coordinator of the Commonwealth Youth Gender Equality Network (CYGEN), supporting collaborative advocacy efforts among 200 youth advocates across all regions of the Commonwealth. Ola has also worked as a consultant with several INGOs and multilateral organisations, including UNICEF, UN Girls Education Initiative (UNGEI), and Plan International, with whom she co-created a brief on the concept of Gender Transformative Education. She is a member of UNGEI’s Global Feminist Coalition for Gender Transformative Education.  Ola holds a Masters in Gender and Development from the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex. She is currently doing a PhD at the South East Technological University (SETU) Waterford, Ireland, where her research focuses on teenage girls and social media literacy programmes, using participatory action research and feminist methodologies.

Isaiah Ugwueke

Isaiah is an education enthusiast with over five years of experience working with young people in various capacities from education to employability, training, coaching and mentorship.

He has built a wealth of diverse experience and expertise  over several years of leading the strategic development and implementation of projects primarily in the fields of education and youth development, with a rich background in leadership & advocacy, project management, fundraising and donor engagement, cross-cultural stakeholder engagement, building strategic partnerships.

Isaiah holds a bachelor’s degree in accounting and a postgraduate diploma in education from the University of Calabar. He is a Certified Teacher from the Teachers Council of Nigeria and an Associate Member of the Chartered Institute of Administration. He also holds a certificate in Non-profit Leadership and Management from Lagos Business School (LBS). He is a 2022 African Civic Engagement Academy Fellow.

Kikelomo Ladipo

Kike is an education and development specialist. She has over 12 years experience across student support, quality assurance/accreditation and academic planning within the government and academic space. She has implemented various government-commissioned development projects that address a range of issues around inequalities and education access and has been involved in strategic collaborations for programme impact and public engagement following her commitment to drive research and development impact in Sub-Saharan Africa and her interest in innovation and new thinking in education.

Kike holds a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology from the University of Lagos, Nigeria and a Master of Arts Degree in International Education/Innovation and Reform from the University of Leicester, United Kingdom. She is currently finishing a PhD in the School of Education at the University of Leicester.