News from Adam

As the new CEO at NEAS Australia, Adam Kilburn will be sharing regular insights with us through this column News From Adam. This week brings you his second update.

One of the great things about NEAS is its international profile. With a membership that extends well beyond Australia, NEAS is a global community for those committed to improvement. I’m off overseas today to attend the CamTESOL conference in Cambodia at which NEAS is to be acknowledged for its ongoing commitment to this highly celebrated event. CamTESOL draws professionals working in our sector from around the world, including a good number of our members, both from Australia and the south-east Asian region. I hope to meet some of you there.

Of course, NEAS has its own thought-leading event: the annual NEAS Management Conference to be held on the 9^th and 10^thof May in Sydney. We have an exciting mix of speakers engaging with us on the theme of “Quality Revolution”. Change – and hasn’t there been a lot of it lately (!?) – forces us to rethink our way to excellence. New modes of delivery; artificial intelligence; working remotely now feature prominently in our professional lives. So, given these changes, the questions are: has excellence changed? Has our way of getting there changed? I’m really looking forward to hearing from our speakers and discussing these questions with you at the conference. Registrations are now open but note that our format has changed this year. There are limited places. Please get in soon and register.

As always, I am keen to hear from you. Please feel free to get in touch with me directly. Although we’re dispersed across the world, I’m interested in learning more about you in your own setting so that NEAS can be the most integrated, member-focused, thoughtful, and community-responsive quality organisation in our sector!

February 2024

Adam Kilburn

Chief Executive Officer

a.kilburn@neas.org.au

T: +61 2 90559275

M: +61 411279927

Dear Valued Quality Member,

In my first few weeks at NEAS, I am reminded of what a privilege it is to work within the ELT sector. We’re a diverse group with an important unifying purpose. We support people through change. Our students progress in proficiency and articulate pathways. They find new ways to be, and they do this in the diversity of settings we provide, operating across continents, with the aid of partnerships, using new and different models. Our sector is vibrant, dynamic and people centred. There is just so much innovation and change out there!

NEAS is an organisation I’ve come to know over my many years in the sector. Always (and still!) committed to quality, NEAS is in essence an organisation of and for its membership. Diverse this membership may be, but common to all is a shared motivation for improvement. This can be challenging, especially in the face of change which seems to keep accelerating. To meet this challenge, our ELT communities matter. Indeed, they are fundamental to the broader education sector, especially as that sector defines itself internationally.

I plan to deliver the best for our membership first by articulating aspiration, then by finding shared points of interest; mobilising the power of our communities; and adding value in the spirit of getting better. NEAS will be the “go to” thought leader in quality and improvement for our sector and it will do so within an environment that I know will continue to evolve in ways we don’t yet know. Because quality isn’t about ticking boxes. That’s too static. Quality is a broader, richer, more complex, and energising concept operating in multiple dimensions from edtech and technology to micro-credentialling, from stand-alone ELICOS to integrated cross sector pathways, both public and private and across the globe

Let me learn with you. I’ve already started getting out and about meeting people in English language centres and those in business that support education providers. My goal especially in these first few months will be to listen. I encourage you to contact me. Tell me what you think. What are your aspirations and how can NEAS help you realise them.

As always, we thank you for your loyalty and commitment to QA in ELT and remain at your service.

February 2024

Category: News from Adam

New CEO Update February 2024