Beng Huat See joined the University of Birmingham, School of Education as Professor Teacher Education on 1 May 2024. Prior to that she was Professor of Education Research at Durham University where she was the Deputy Director of the Durham University Evidence Centre for Education (DECCE). She was trained as a social scientist (specialising in education as a field) and has worked in a range of social science areas including health promotion, character education, developing critical thinking skills. Perhaps her unique (or at least rare) research skill lies in the conduct of systematic reviews and the natural synthesis of evidence of all types and qualities. She is also proficient in the re-use of existing large-scale datasets, the conduct of trials and other robust evaluations, and the full range of in-depth field work.
Beng Huat’s career began as a secondary school teacher in Singapore where she taught geography and English for 16 years. For seven years she headed the humanities department. In 1994 she completed her Masters in Education at Cardiff University specialising in education management and TEFL, having had an RSA diploma in TESOL from the British Council. She spent 3 years teaching GCSE and A-level geography in an FE college in South Wales. In 2000 she was awarded an ESRC doctoral training scholarship in the open competition era, investigating the determinants of teacher supply and demand.
Prof See is a nominated fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences, the Royal Society of Arts and the UK Higher Education Academy. She serves on a number of UKRI grant assessment panels and regularly reviews grant proposals for international research organisations. And she regularly provides consultative advice to the DfE, ESRC and the Cabinet Office.
Her research interests are wide and varied, but stems mainly from her desire to help children of all ages, gender, abilities and ethnicity to enjoy school and to achieve their full potential. Her current research is focused on teacher supply, teacher wellbeing, professional development of teachers and school leaders, and improving the diversity of the teaching workforce. She is also interested in areas relating to critical thinking, parental involvement and education programmes to improve the learning and wider outcomes of children from disadvantaged backgrounds.
She currently leads a substantial ESRC project examining teacher education policies in OECD and partner countries to identify key political, cultural, institutional and economic drivers of teacher supply. She also co-leads two other ESRC-funded projects. One of these is to improve the selection and recruitment of STEM teachers, and the other is looking at ways to improve the ethnic diversity in the teacher workforce. Her previous ESRC-funded project looked at the key determinants of teacher shortages in England.
Prof See is keen to develop the next generation of social scientists and would welcome interested people to work with her on exciting projects