Professor of Education Dr. Unaisi Nabobo-Baba will serve as one of two keynote speakers during the upcoming 44^th Annual Conference of the Oceania Comparative & International Education Society held this November at the University of Sydney.

The title of the Conference is “Exploring Equity Gaps in Education: Toward Unity, Not Uniformity,” which Nabobo-Baba said is still a prevalent issue throughout island nations.

“Access and equity in education is a theme that is seminal,” she said. “Given our histories of education—colonial and post-colonial—there has been a long standing history of schooling and related under achievement, related reforms, movements, initiatives, programs, acts and policy changes that address national, regional as well as international concerns of the same.”

Nabobo-Baba said in her own experience, she was, at times, alone among her male colleagues as the sole female scholar, which highlights the disparities and issues of access and equity for disadvantaged minority groups.

“I became the first indigenous Fijian woman to be a full professor in any university worldwide,” she said. “That type of situation speaks to gender disparity and the struggle women have had in some parts of the Pacific to be on par with our male counterparts.”

To learn more about the conference visit: https://ocies.org/conference-2/

To learn more about Dr. Nabobo-Baba visit: http://www.uog.edu/directory/unaisi-nabobo-baba