A greeting from the CCEAM President, Professor Petros Pashiardis

Dear colleagues,

Our membership increases year after year and is becoming, with each passing year, the meeting ground for East, West, North and South. This is the main thrust of the upcoming CCEAM 2008 conference in Durban, South Africa. The Conference theme is: Think Globally, Act Locally. A very timely theme and very appropriate for the multitudes of our membership around the Commonwealth and the globe. Plans for an interesting, informative and integrated CCEAM conference in 2008 are well underway and our friends from EMASA, the affiliate which is organizing this conference are hard at work.

Indeed, the more we become a truly international organization, the more we have to rethink and reframe our most cherished notions of school leadership, management and administration. Durban is already shaping up to be a great host-city for our conference and for those of us who think that we live on the top of the world we are getting ready to go down under. However, a friend from South Africa told me once, how are things down there for you in Europe. That is when I realized that down under or up there are very relative clauses and it really depends on where you stand in order to have a certain point of you. The same goes for our theme: what is global may become local and what is local may become global.

We expect a large number of members from around the Commonwealth and from many more countries from around the world to be present at this wonderful event. See you all there!!!

Professor Petros Pashiardis

CCEAM President