Graeme Harrison
Senior Education Manager
Graeme Harrison worked for many years in teaching and academic management all over the world, including Japan, Spain and Argentina, before moving into assessment at the University of Glasgow and later, Cambridge Assessment English. At Cambridge English, he has been involved in producing exams such as B2 First (formerly Cambridge English: First), IELTS, and the Cambridge English Placement Test.
In 2014, Graeme became Head of Assessment Services for the Southern Cone and Andes. In this role, he worked on projects throughout the region, including a national test of English in Chile (SIMCE Inglés) and test development and training with ICFES, Colombia. Currently he is working on a large-scale education reform project in Malaysia.
His professional areas of interest include education reform, assessment, teacher education, and digital literacy for teachers, and he has had research published on factors affecting English language attainment, and the impact of tests on younger learners’ attitudes towards learning English. He presents his work at academic conferences, recently delivering a plenary workshop on assessing writing at ILACE, Egypt, and a talk on digital myths and realities for teachers at RELC, Singapore.
Graeme is a DELTA-qualified teacher, and also holds an MSc in Psychological Studies from the University of Glasgow and an MA in Language Testing from the University of Lancaster. He speaks Spanish to C2 level.
Recent projects
- Graeme worked on a bespoke English language exam for SIMCE (Quality of Education Evaluation System), which is a Department of the Chilean Ministry of Education. This was delivered across the Chilean state education sector, testing up to 240,000 students over three years. Read more about the project here, or the research article here.
- As part of its National Bilingual Project, the Colombian government has used a comprehensive programme of consultancy services from Cambridge Assessment English including benchmarking English proficiency, developing a tailored assessment, delivering a teacher development programme and capacity building to ensure lasting impact. Read a summary of project here, or the research article here.
- Working with a national ministry of education, Graeme oversaw an extensive evaluation of pre-service English language teacher education as part of a major programme of education reform. Read more about the project here.