Professor Hitendra Pillay
Faculty of Creative Industries, Education & Social Justice,
School of Teacher Education & Leadership
Biography
Hitendra Pillay is a Professor in the Faculty of Creative Industries, Education and Social Justice at Queensland University of Technology. He has multi-disciplinary background ranging from education to engineering to cognitive science – resulting in a diverse academic research portfolio. He has won many research grants from the Australian Research Council (ARC), the Taiwan National Science Council, Australian Development Research Award Scheme, and published over 145 academic papers and over 120 technical reports for the World Bank, Asian Development Bank, Australian & NZ Aid and the European Union. Professor Pillay has successfully supervised over 45 PhDs across a range of research areas and has worked in 35 countries ( OECD and developing countries) as either an education sector expert or university academic. His understanding of knowledge systems and human cognition privileges him to be innovative and develop complex schemas for cross discipline knowledge creation and associated applications. Drawing on his multi-disciplinary academic research and social sector development work his current research interest is synthesizing the fragmented research agendas into more holistic and cross disciplinary models of knowledge creation, innovation and global development.Professor Pillay’s research grants are listed below.
Title: Implementing and monitoring education policy and practices for people with disability in the South Pacific
Primary Fund Type: CAT 1 - Australian Competitive Grant
Project ID: 66446
Start Year: 2013
Keywords: Disability; Education; Inclusive Education; Professional Development
Title: Industry-school Partnerships: A Strategy to Enhance Education and Training Opportunities
Primary Fund Type: CAT 1 - Australian Competitive Grant
Project ID: LP100200052
Start Year: 2011
Keywords: Youth Employment; Education Policy; Industry-school Partnerships; Curriculum Innovation
Title: Developing a creative ecology as a community of practice: The pathway from training to profession in the digital content industries. (Sixty Sox)
Primary Fund Type: CAT 1 - Australian Competitive Grant
Project ID: LP0669617
Start Year: 2007
Keywords: New Media; Creative Arts; Training Environments; Professionalisation; Communities of Practice; Online Ecologies
Title: Finding a Voice: Making Technological Change Socially Effective and Culturally Empowering
Primary Fund Type: CAT 1 - Australian Competitive Grant
Project ID: LP0561848
Start Year: 2006
Keywords: media ethnographic action research local content creation ICTs social and technological networks
Title: Researching, Designing and Evaluating Online Learning Tools to Effectively Utilise Audio-Visual Archives: Critical Literacies through Rich Task Interactivity
Primary Fund Type: CAT 1 - Australian Competitive Grant
Project ID: LP0454996
Start Year: 2005
Keywords: interaction design; multimedia; creative industries; digital content aggregation; educational technology and media; adaptive distributed learning systems
Title: Redefining the Ageing Workforce in Local Governments: Mapping Aspirations of Older/Blue Collar Workers with Organisational Training and Development Interventions
Primary Fund Type: CAT 1 - Australian Competitive Grant
Project ID: LP0561545
Start Year: 2005
Keywords: older workers local government productive ageing training and development career aspirations rural and regional communities
Title: E-learning Advocacy: Understanding Students' Experience of New Learning Environments to Promote Quality Sustainable Developments
Primary Fund Type: CAT 1 - Australian Competitive Grant
Project ID: DP0211854
Start Year: 2002
Title: Conceptions of health and health care held by Aboriginal, Torres Strait Islander and Papua New Guinea University students and health care workers
Primary Fund Type: CAT 1 - Australian Competitive Grant
Start Year: 2000
Title: An analysis of conceptions of work to understand factors influencing the development of a learning culture in the workplace
Primary Fund Type: CAT 1 - Australian Competitive Grant
Project ID: A10024103
Start Year: 2000
Personal details
Positions
- Professor
Faculty of Creative Industries, Education & Social Justice,
School of Teacher Education & Leadership
Keywords
co-operative/community based learning., cognition and learning, development of multimedia learning materials, education reform, educational computer games, learning strategies for higher-order thinking skills, learning to learn, workplace education & training
Research field
Specialist Studies in Education, Education Systems
Field of Research code, Australian and New Zealand Standard Research Classification (ANZSRC), 2008
Qualifications
- PhD (University of New South Wales)
- MA (The University of the South Pacific)
- MSc (University of New South Wales)
- BEd (The University of the South Pacific)
- DipEd (The University of the South Pacific)
Experience
- Australian Awards short course: Aus4ASEAN: New Technologies in TVET (policies and programs). Academic Lead and Program Design. 2024
- National Human Capital Development for the 21st Century - QUT/Republic of Fiji Contracted Research. Lead Investigator. 2022-2023
- TVET in Fiji: Better alignment between skills development and labor market demand. Fiji Higher Education Commission contract. Lead Specialist, 2018
- E-learning for Secondary Science Education in the Pacific, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Government of New Zealand. Contract. Design Team Leader-2018
- Education Policy and Planning expert. Asian Development Bank TA 8774 REG. 2016-1017 Support analytical work on global trends and innovation in post-secondary education for preparation of knowledge products, evidence based policy dialogue in selected CWA countries and contribute as a speaker in the post-secondary education forum.
- Partnership for Innovation in Education in Asia and the Pacific. Asian Development Bank Technical assistance - Co financed by the Govt of Finland. 2014-2016. TA8503-REG. Team Leader
- Current Status of Vocational Education in India. BHP Billiton limited , Singapore. Contract research -QV Ref # 50. 2014. Lead Researcher
- Adjunct Professor: Research Capacity Development, University of the South Pacific, 2013-ongoing.
- Samoa SchoolNet Project, ADB Grant # SAM 36513-03: RTI International Consultancy Services Contract Number 8305 Jan 2010 to Dec 2013 Samoa. Team Leader
- AUSAID/EC Education Sector Support Project; AUSAID, Indonesia. Contract # 50827. 24 May 2009 – 9th Oct 2009, Indonesia,
- ESDP 1960 – Project Completion Report for ESDP policy reform loan, Uzbekistan, ADB, 24 May 2008 – 9th Oct 2008, Uzbekistan,
- Basic Education Project – Indonesia – AUSAID, 25 Mar 2006 – 30 Jun 2006, Indonesia,
- Samoa SchoolNet & Community Access- Asian Development Bank: ADB TA No 4305-SAM, 15 Feb 2005 – 28 Feb 2006, Samoa,
- Albanian Education Reform Project – World Bank Credit # 3343-ALB, 30 Jun 2004 – 07 Feb 2005, Albania, Chief Education Sector Advisor .
- Central Asian Regional Project- Asian Development Bank: ADB TA5988-REG, 1 May 2003 – 12 Sep 2003, Central Asia,
- QLD Rail People Management Program Q-RAIL, 20 May 2003 – 23 May 2003, Australia,
- Tajikistan Social Sector Development Project- Asian Development Bank: ADB TA 3704-TAJ, 17 May 2002 – 31 July 2002, Tajikistan,
- Education Sector Project Thailand- Asian Development Bank: ADB TA 3885- THAI, 28 Feb 2002 – 17 May 2002, Thailand,
- Learning and Innovation – World Bank LIL project, 09 April 1999 – 23 July 1999, Azerbaijan,
Publications
QUT ePrints
For more publications by Hitendra, explore their research in QUT ePrints (our digital repository).
Selected research projects
- Title
- Implementing and monitoring education policy and practices for people with disability in the South Pacific
- Primary fund type
- CAT 1 - Australian Competitive Grant
- Project ID
- 66446
- Start year
- 2013
- Keywords
- Disability; Education; Inclusive Education; Professional Development
- Title
- Industry-school Partnerships: A Strategy to Enhance Education and Training Opportunities
- Primary fund type
- CAT 1 - Australian Competitive Grant
- Project ID
- LP100200052
- Start year
- 2011
- Keywords
- Youth Employment; Education Policy; Industry-school Partnerships; Curriculum Innovation
Projects listed above are funded by Australian Competitive Grants. Projects funded from other sources are not listed due to confidentiality agreements.
Supervision
Current supervisions
- Investigating the Alignment between English Language Academic Support Courses and Students' Transition to English Medium Instruction at a Sri Lankan University
PhD, Principal Supervisor
Other supervisors: Adjunct Associate Professor Margaret Kettle, Dr Mallihai Tambyah, Dr Ronan Kelly - Capacity development of research supervisors to support sustainable post graduate supervision in developing countries
PhD, Principal Supervisor
Other supervisors: Professor Karen Dooley - Gamification in a non-tech environment: the effects of students performance, Intrinsic motivation, and attitudes toward Statistics
PhD, Principal Supervisor
Other supervisors: Associate Professor James Davis - Enriching the Learning Experiences of PSHS-CVisC Students through Mathematical Investigation in Blended Modality of Learning
Professional Doctorate, Associate Supervisor
Other supervisors: Dr Andy Yeh - Emancipatory entrepreneurship capabilities for migrant youth: Educational responses to human social capital development in second generation immigrants to Australia
Professional Doctorate, Associate Supervisor
Other supervisors: Associate Professor James Davis - Teacher-Students' Communication and Teacher Professional Development in Digital Learning System
Professional Doctorate, Principal Supervisor
Other supervisors: Associate Professor Denise Beutel - Teachers' use of self-regulated learning skills to embed the Australian Curriculum's general capabilities in Years 7-8 History
Professional Doctorate, Principal Supervisor
Other supervisors: Associate Professor Denise Beutel - Future-Proof Gifted Education in the Philippines: Developing a National and Official Filipino K to12 Curriculum Model and Framework for the Gifted Students in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) in Philippine Secondary Schools
Professional Doctorate, Principal Supervisor
Other supervisors: Dr Senka Henderson - Secondary school leadership in disrupting times: the role of entrepreneurship in leading contemporary learning organisations
Professional Doctorate, Mentoring Supervisor
Other supervisors: Dr Chris Blundell, Associate Professor James Davis
Completed supervisions (Doctorate)
- Integration of ICT to Support Critical Reading in Bogotá (2024)
- Convergence of Andragogy and E-Learning to Facilitate Employee Engagement in the Workplace Learning (2021)
- Impact of Digital Game-Based Learning to Support Students' Cognitive Skills Development for English Language Learning in Vietnam (2020)
- Aligning Specialist English Language Curriculum in Higher Education with Development Imperatives and Workplace Communication Needs in Vietnam: A Case Study of the Vietnamese Petroleum Industry (2017)
- The Effects of Digital Story Communication on Health Literacy Indicators in the Mining Industry (2017)
- The Impact of Industry-Based Learning Programs on Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics Students: A Case Study of Indonesian Higher Education (2017)
- Leadership to Support Quality Improvement in Vietnamese Higher Education (2016)
- Industry-School Partnerships: An Ecological Case Study to Understand Operational Dynamics (2015)
- Knowledge transfer through dual degree programs: Perspectives from Indonesian universities (2014)
- A Higher Education Quality Assurance Model for Small States: The Maldives Case Study (2013)