Freda Wolfenden

Freda Wolfenden, Chair of the Board

Freda Wolfenden is a Professor of Education and International Development in the Faculty of Wellbeing, Education and Language Studies at The Open University, UK. Her career in education has spanned over 30 years and included time as a teacher, education multimedia producer, advisor and academic.

For over twenty years Freda’s professional work has been concerned with enhancing the quality of pedagogy practices and teacher development. She has led the Masters in Education programme at The Open University in addition to leading the conceptualization, planning, implementation and associated research of multiple large-scale formal and informal teacher education programmes in the UK and across the Global South including the award winning TESSA and TESS-India initiatives. These programmes have a focus on the use of open practices at scale in the pursuit of equity in participation in teacher and student learning.

At The Open University Freda has held a number of leadership positions including Associate Dean (Curriculum, Qualifications and Scholarship). Between February 2019 and December 2020 Freda was Education Director and Team Leader at the Girls' Education Challenge (GEC), a large FCDO funded programme supporting the learning of over 1.3M marginalised girls in 17 countries through 41 projects.

Freda’s research aims to offer insights into how digital technologies, open practices and collaborative teams can improve the quality of pedagogic practice and support transformation at an institution and system level in low / middle income contexts.  Freda has led applied research projects with partners across the globe. Her recent work includes researching scaling in teacher education funded through the GPE-KIX programme. She is currently research lead for the Empowering Teachers Initiative, a global research programme exploring conceptions of quality, equity and scaling in teacher development, funded by IDRC.

Freda has a long history of active participation in the education and international development community and was chair of the Board of UKFIET until September 2025.