Ekwi Dashur is an emerging leader in education, researcher, administrator and consultant with experience in international students advisory, cultural support and integration, crisis management and student welfare, students’ compliance, admission support and administration, as well as teaching support both in UK primary school and university environments, encapsulating a macro and micro experience in education. She currently holds Board positions with various responsibilities in advisory capacity, and as a shareholder and non-executive member of Board of Directors in Nigeria, in diverse industry such as Education, Construction, Real Estate, Events Management and Planning, Non-Profit, etc.

Though her previous career was in Acting/Drama and Movies, the switch in her career in education has been defined by her fascination with how educational systems, on both a macro and micro level, shape the student experience. With a Bachelor’s degree in English Literature and a Master of Arts in Education, she is experienced in managing university-level admissions, applicant students advisory, and subsequent hands-on experience as teaching administration in a UK. She is curious about the significant disconnect between prescriptive curriculum goals and the organic, imaginative ways children actually learn, particularly in primary education.

Ekwi’s interest in exploring and understanding the pedagogical hidden tactics in child/learner literacy and development inspired her to leave her university job, to pick up Teaching Assisting role in a UK Primary School, where she was immediately struck by the idea of creative strategies that practitioners use to “disguise” learning objectives within play-based activities, making lessons engaging rather than didactic. She is currently in pursuit of her PhD in Education, deepening and broadening her knowledge and research areas of interests concerning the theoretical frameworks regarding curriculum studies, literacy and child development, while promoting the approach and offering practical insights into the “messy, unpredictable nature of play” as the “disguise” of learning goals, in itself a strategy to maintain a positive, inclusive affective environment in education.