Born in the United States and raised in Canada, Bob Turner became a teacher of English and Theatre Arts in 1967 and taught for eighteen years in a small-city school in Ontario, Canada. During that time, his classroom teaching duties were augmented by other appointments: he was one of the first Career Counsellors specializing in Job Placement through a Cooperative Education programme, he was Head of the English and Theatre Arts Departments, and he served as Chairman of the School Board Advisory Committee and on other committees and organizations, including the provincial Superintendent’s Advisory Committee for School and Youth Programming at Television Ontario.

In 1986, Bob took a six–month replacement contract to teach in the remote Arctic Community of Kangiqsujuaq in the Nunavik region of Quebec. Fifteen years later, he was still working for the Inuit-governed Kativik School Board, by that time in its Montreal offices, and had served as teacher of second-language elementary, secondary and adult students, as education consultant for Adult Upgrading and Career Choice, and for five years as Director of Education Services responsible for curriculum development, faculty development, and supervision of all education services from pre-kindergarten to a special post-secondary programme that took young Inuit to universities and colleges in the South.

For "contrast" during 1998, he went from the Arctic to the Equator of East Africa to be education consultant and Secondary Headmaster for the Aga Khan Education Service in Kampala, Uganda. His challenge was to take a government-run secondary school through renovation to become a school of recognized high standards with an enhanced faculty. In 2001, Bob was invited back to Africa by the Aga Khan Education Service to serve as consultant for integration of ICT in the curriculum of the schools from Nursery through Senior Secondary. After three months he was offered the contractual position of Director of Education and Chief Executive Officer, to help bring the organization through two years of intensive change aimed at creating Centres of Excellence of the Aga Khan Schools. His contract ended in June, 2003.

In July 2003, Bob moved to Dubai with a view to continuing his work through East Africa, the Asian sub-continent and the Emirates – especially Dubai. He is now working more in a mentoring capacity, especially on sustainable development in the areas of:
•strategic planning for educational enhancement
•curriculum design , especially embracing student-centered, life-long learning principles and including career and life-choice education at its core
•alignment of curriculum objectives with cultural expectations
•adaptation of appropriate teaching methodology and ICT in the syllabus
•faculty development and nationalization of faculty and senior management

Bob's focus in education is learning for life in the student-centered classroom. His years of work in career and life choices education and faculty development provide the basis for strategic planning for positive educational change to help schools become value-added education facilities and centres of excellence.

Robert C Turner
Education and Human Resource Development Consultant

PO Box 76726
Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Voice: +971 50 656 8010 Fax: +971 4 398 7968
bob@rcturner.com