A'oa'oga Fa'atasi (Learning in Place)

A'oa'oga Fa'atasi is a partnership between the University of Newcastle and the National University of Samoa, supported and endorsed by Samoa's Ministry of Education and Culture.

At its heart is a professional learning course in inclusive education for Samoan teachers. Across five days of facilitated learning, teachers explore practical approaches such as Universal Design for Learning, strategies for supporting diverse learners and ways of monitoring student progress, all grounded in Samoan classroom realities.

Early evaluation is encouraging: teachers' average self rated knowledge and confidence in inclusive practice rose from 3.58 to 4.60 out of 5, with significant gains on nine of ten measures, and all eleven teachers surveyed after the course said they would recommend it to colleagues. These results come from small groups of teachers (14 before and 11 after the course) and reflect their own ratings, so we see them as a promising early signal.

The work is now being embedded in the National University of Samoa's pre-service teaching degree, with the aim of reaching primary teachers across Samoa.