Mr Oladapo Fadoju

Professional biography

Ola Fadoju is a Staff Tutor in Education and Childhood and an Associate Lecturer (AL) in Sport and Fitness at The Open University. Ola has previously worked at the Institute of Educational Technology (IET) as a Quality Assurance Manager.

Before joining the OU, Ola was a curriculum manager in Sports, Leisure and Tourism at Southgate College, London for seven years. He also was the Community Learning Manager at Luton Adult Learning and City of London Adult Education. He has also worked as a youth worker in West London.

Ola's areas of specialisation are in teacher education, project management, social inequalities in education (FE, Adult Ed & HE) and sports coaching and fitness conditioning. He is also interested in the sociological aspects of the sport, with an emphasis on social inequalities and equality policies in sports settings.

Research interests

Ola's research interests revolve around social inequalities in education and sport. With critical analysis of the structural and institutionalised barriers hindering the professional development of minoritised groups in sports and education. Additionally, he has been involved in scholarship projects at The OU that are looking at the awarding gaps and the student experiences of Black students in the faculty of WELS.

Teaching interests

Ola has taught across the education spectrum in sports and fitness, teacher education and project management. He enjoys providing visual and audio feedback to students on their assignments. He relishes the opportunities to introduce learners to emerging theories/concepts in sports, teacher education and project management and is very interested in how students link the theories they have learnt to their working practices.

Ola is currently the co-lead on E104 (Introduction to Childhood Studies and Child Psychology). He has also been an Associate Lecturer on a wide range of Sports and fitness modules since 2010.

To find out more about the Sports and Fitness qualifications available at The Open University, please click here .

To find out more about the Childhood and Youth qualifications at The Open University please click here .

Impact and engagement

Ola has been involved intensively at The OU with the Black Minority Ethnic (BME) network and is one of the three co-chairs of the network. He previously worked with the University Secretary's Office (USO) in reviewing how to improve diversity in the AL Assembly and Boards of Studies. He is currently the co-chair of the ECYS EDI working group, which was instrumental in creating and implementing the EDI plan for the school (ECYS). Additionally, he has been collaborating with the Student Support Team (SST), pathway and programme leads and module teams across his school and faculty on reducing the Awarding Gap. He also is a member of the partnership board for FarleyBigLocal