Dr Nidhi Singal

Fellow at Hughes Hall, Cambridge

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Professor of Disability and Inclusive Education

Nidhi’s core areas of research interest lie in addressing issues of educational inequity among marginalised groups in Southern contexts. She has worked extensively with children and young people with disabilities in South Asia and Africa. Her research has focused on the experiences of children with disabilities attending a range of different educational arrangements, the quality of teaching and learning in these settings, and the impact of schooling on short and long term outcomes. Another important dimension in her work has been the development of culturally sensitive approaches in educational research. She is particularly interested in critically examining power relations in North-South research partnerships, the ethics of research dissemination, and the impact of educational research on policy making for children with disabilities.

Nidhi has extensive experience of working with international organisations such as, World Bank, CBM, Humanity and Inclusion, assisting them in developing research projects, programme evaluation and policy work. In 2015, she was invited by the Ministry of Norway to be part of the Working Group on Inclusive Education for the Oslo Education Summit and worked with the team to produce the background paper [pdf] Towards a Disability Inclusive Education. For the Global Disability Summit, co-hosted by the Department for International Development (UK) , International Disability Alliance and Government of Kenya, she led the drafting of the International Statement of Action, [pdf] “Accelerate Equitable and Quality Inclusive Education for Children and Youth with Disabilities” which has been signed by 31 donor agencies, international NGOs, research organisations and global education networks.

She is currently working with the International Commission on Financing Global Education, as the Disability Expert on The Education Workforce Initiative. She is part of the Technical Advisory Review Team for the Global Education Monitoring Report on Inclusive Education. Among other technical roles on different projects with the World Bank and UNESCO IIEP.

Nidhi is an active Fellow of her College, Hughes Hall, and has served as the (Acting) Vice President in 2013. In 2014, she was appointed a Trustee of the Cambridge Trust, the biggest student grant making body in Cambridge. She is also a Trustee (UK Board) of the Light for the World. Before coming to Cambridge, Nidhi trained as a clinical psychologist (University of Delhi) and worked with children and young adults in a range of clinical and educational settings in India.