Alex Howells
My work explores the ways in which societies organise learning – and have organised it in the past – in pursuit of social, economic and political goals, from decolonisation and development to lifelong learning.
I am interested in how promises about learning travel across borders, change over time and shape people's lives, particularly in the global South. I also support international organisations, governments and partners with learning policy and practice, connecting local experience to the global governance of education.
Three interconnected areas of work
Work
Policy advice, capacity-building and research with governments, international organisations and partners on learning-system improvement.
View work →Research
A transnational history of education as an apparatus of opportunity and discontent – Let Them Get Learning? The Promise of Education in Kenya and the World, 1945–1980.
View research →The Reform Cycle
Conversations with people who have shaped cycles of education and learning reform — their stories and legacies.
Enter the series →Background
My career has so far been spent between the classroom, the international organisation and the archive. I began as a primary teacher in Manchester, trained in comparative education and international development in Edinburgh, and later worked at the UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning in Hamburg, where I coordinated policy dialogues, workshops and research across Africa and Asia. These experiences underpin my doctoral research in international history and politics at the Geneva Graduate Institute.