Professor Graeme Aitken

Graeme Aitken is Professor of Education and Director of Educational Initiatives at the University of Auckland where he chairs the university's Academic External Review panels and contributes to university teaching and learning projects.  He is a trustee of two charitable organisations - I Have A Dream and the Education Hub – and is a Board of Trustee member of the Hobsonville Point schools.

From 2008 to 2017 Graeme was Dean of Education and Social Work at the University of Auckland.  He is a former secondary school teacher of social studies, geography and history (1977-1990) and Director of Secondary Teacher Education at the University of Auckland.

His main research interests are curriculum design and teaching effectiveness.  Along with his colleague Claire Sinnema he was responsible for writing the Social Sciences Best Evidence Synthesis and developing the Teaching as Inquiry model that is now incorporated into the New Zealand Curriculum.  Graeme has advised the Ministry of Education on the development of  Standards for Graduating Teachers.  The report from this work, co-authored with Claire Sinnema and Frauke Meyer, was subsequently published in the Journal of Teacher Education and won the 2017 American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education Outstanding Article Award for exemplary scholarship.   Graeme has continued to advise the Teaching Council, and train panellists, on the application of the Council’s teaching standards to the approval of teacher education programmes in New Zealand.  Most recently Graeme has been a consultant to the Ministry of Education on clarifying the curriculum base for the Review of Achievement Standards.  In 2019 he was a recipient of a Lifetime Educational Achievement Award from the Minister of Education.