Esteemed SERC academic, Assistant Professor Sitti Patahuddin, received an Australia Award in 2004 to undertake her PhD at the University of Queensland. Once Sitti completed her PhD, she waisted no time immersing herself in community-focussed education projects.
In her most recent project, from 2014–2018, Sitti led an aid-funded project in disadvantaged communities in West Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia. This project engaged with educators, providing valuable learning opportunities and empowering them to transform education.
A vital element of the project was its underpinning framework: the Experience, Language, Pictorial, Symbol, Application (ELPSA) framework, developed by the SERC team at the University of Canberra. The ELPSA framework has since been used to create the ERA framework used in SERC’s Early Learning STEM Australia (ELSA) program.
As Sitti herself grew up in a similar community to those that the project helped, this has been an especially fulfilling journey for her.
You can read the full interview article on the Australia Awards Indonesia website.