PRESENTING CHAIRPERSONS


Dr. Canute S. Thompson

CMC Senior Lecturer - Educational Policy, Planning, and Leadership | Head - Caribbean Centre for Educational Planning (CCEP) | Co-Founder and Chief Consultant - The Caribbean Leadership Re-Imagination Initiative (CLRI), The University of the West Indies (The UWI), Mona

Dr. Canute Thompson is Senior Lecturer in Educational Policy, Planning, and Leadership and Head of the Caribbean Centre for Educational Planning. He joined the faculty of the School of Education in 2014.

Dr. Thompson’s publication record number six books with his seventh due for release in the 2021/22 Academic Year. In addition, he has published one monograph and fourteen journal articles. He has two book chapters awaiting publication. He is also a newspaper columnist and has published hundreds of articles.

In 2019, Dr. Thompson’s article “Leadership behaviours that nurture organizational trust: Re-Examining the fundamentals”, won the award “Best Publication” under the Principal’s Award. In 2020, Dr. Thompson won two more awards: “Best Publication” for his 2019 book, Reimagining Educational Leadership in the Caribbean and “Most Outstanding Researcher”, for his research output during the 2019/20 Academic Year.

Dr. Thompson is a graduate of The UWI’s School of Education and completed his PhD in Educational Administration with High Commendation in 2008 and later won the “Most Outstanding Thesis” Award and the Dean’s Award for Excellence for his dissertation.


Dr. Carmel Roofe - Bowen

Senior Lecturer in Curriculum and Instruction, School of Education, The University of the West Indies, Mona | Twitter handle: @carmelRoofe

Dr. Carmel Roofe -Bowen is a Senior Lecturer in Curriculum and Instruction in the School of Education, at The University of the West Indies, Mona where she is a Deputy Dean and the programme co-ordinator for masters and doctoral programmes in Curriculum Studies. Her career in teaching spans teaching in secondary schools and training initial and in-service teachers at the Higher Education level. She has served as consultant with the World Bank and the Ministry of Education, Jamaica, and as a resource person for the Commonwealth of Learning. She is the co-founder and current president of the Caribbean Association for the Advancement of Curriculum Studies. She has authored and co-authored several peer reviewed journal articles, special issue journals, books and book chapters. Recent co-authored book publications include, Intercultural studies in curriculum: Theory, policy and practice (Palgrave Macmillan), SDG 4 – Quality education: Inclusivity, equity and lifelong learning for all (Emerald publishing), and A cross-cultural consideration of teacher leaders' narratives of power, agency and school culture: England, Jamaica and the United States (Myers Education Press). Dr. Roofe - Bowen is also a research fellow at the University of Huddersfield.


Darien G. Henry MA, BEd, PQP

Principal, Training Consultant, Communications Advisor

An accomplished educator and transformational school administrator, Darien G. Henry is the current Principal of Cumberland High School in Portmore, St Catherine. He has been credited with leading the transformation of the Cumberland High, once regarded as a notoriously failing school.

Mr. Henry, is a trained Lead School Inspector with the National Education Inspectorate, NEI and has been trained and certified by the National College of Educational Leadership and the Mona School of Business and Management (UWI).

He has become a highly sought after speaker, presenter and facilitator for staff development forums around the country and at education conferences covering topics ranging from Teaching and Learning, Teaching Boys, Teacher Professionalism, Leadership for Middle Management Professionals in Schools and Public Speaking for School Leaders.

Mr. Henry is a highly respected conference chairman having served as moderator at conferences which include the 11TH Policy Dialogue and Annual meeting of the International Taskforce on Teachers for Education, the TVET Leaders’ Summit and Youth Forum, Jamaican National Leadership Summit, British Council Boys in Education Forum among many others to his credit.

Avid volleyball player and prolific writer of opinion articles for the Gleaner and Observer, Mr. Henry is also an award-winning Broadcast Communication Specialist, who has been in the field of broadcast journalism for 25 years working in capacities ranging from Consulting Editor, Senior Reporter, Senior Producer and Staff Reporter in the electronic media landscape ranging from CVM, RJR, TVJ, IRIE FM and the Jamaica Information Service.

The proud father of boys, Darien Jr. and Devonte, he is now a doctoral candidate with Temple University in Pennsylvania, and holds a Masters of Arts Degree with Distinction from the University of the West Indies in Leadership in TVET and Workforce Development, a Bachelor of Education Degree in Geography and Environmental Science with Upper Second Class Honours from the Mico University and an Advanced Diploma with Honours from the Caribbean School of Media and Communication at the UWI.