Dr. Pauline Dixon

Professor Pauline Dixon has a Personal Chair of International Development and Education at Newcastle University in the North East of England.

She is Research Director of the E.G. West Centre and Deputy Director of Sole Central at the university. She lectures in economics, education policy and quantitative methods.

Professor Dixon’s research in India, Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya, China, and Tanzania, investigates education for the poorest living in slums and shanty towns.

She has also worked as an advisor and external researcher with the English-based international charity Absolute Return for Kids (ARK) in Delhi, India. She has helped to set up an education voucher programme as well as introduce improvements in quality to both government and private schools operating in the slum of Shahdara, East Delhi, through the use of synthetic phonics.

Professor Dixon gained her PhD from Newcastle in 2003 which looked at the regulations private schools in the slums of Hyderabad, India, abide by from an Austrian economic perspective. The thesis described and analysed a case study of private schools catering for low-income families. The research was carried out in order to examine the regulatory regime under which private schools exist.

Professor Dixon was International Research Coordinator on the John Templeton Project from 2003-2005, the Orient Global Project from 2007-2009 and 'Education in Difficult Places' again funded by the John Templeton Foundation from 2013-2015.

Her project 'The Identification and Nurturing of talented children in the slums of Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania' was completed in June 2015.

Professor Dixon has numerous awards and honours to her name including a Luminary Award from South Africa for her dedication to alleviating poverty. She delivers keynote speeches and presentations around the world including at Capitol Hill, Washington D.C., USA, at Brown University, USA, as well as in Europe including Zurich, Liechtenstein, Durham, Glasgow, London, and Vienna. She has also presented the research findings to government officials in India and Africa.

She is considered an expert in her field and has more than 50 publications in academic journals, monographs and book chapters. 

Her two books 'International Aid and Private Schools for the Poor' and 'Handbook of International Development and Education' all feature her work around education in the developing world. Her first book was named one of the top 100 books of the year in the Times Literary Supplement.

FMF talk for Luminary Award South Africa:

Book "International Aid and Private Schools for the Poor: Smiles, Miracles and Markets"

One of the "Times Literary Supplement" Books of the Year 2013