Dr. Ruth Hayhoe

Department of Leadership, Higher & Adult Education

OISE/University of Toronto

Email: hayhoe@me.com

BIO KEY Publications READINGs VIDEOS BLOGS

BIO

Ruth HAYHOE has been a professor at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto since 1986. She began her career as a secondary school teacher in Hong Kong, 1967-78, then taught at Fudan University in Shanghai, 1980-82. She also served as First Secretary for Education, Science and Culture at the Canadian Embassy in Beijing, 1989-1991 and Director of the Hong Kong Institute of Education (HKIED), now the Education University of Hong Kong, 1997-2002, where she holds the title of President Emerita.

Ruth’s recent books include Religion and Education: Comparative and International Perspectives (Symposium Books, 2018), Comparative and International Education: Issues for Teachers (Canadian Scholars Press, 2017) and Canadian Universities in China’s Transformation: An Untold Story (McGill Queens University Press, 2016). China through the Lens of Comparative Education: The Selected Works of Ruth Hayhoe, came out in 2015 with Routledge’s World Library of Educationalists. Other books include Portraits of 21st Century Chinese Universities: In the Move to Mass Higher Education (Comparative Education Research Centre, University of Hong Kong and Springer, 2011), Portraits of Influential Chinese Educators (CERC and Springer, 2006), and Chinese Universities 1895-1995: A Century of Cultural Conflict (Routledge, 1996).

Ruth has received many honors including the Silver Bauhinia Star of the Hong Kong SAR Government (2002), Commandeur dans l’ordre des Palmes Académiques of the Government of France (2002), Honorary Doctorate from the HKIEd (2002), Mingyuan Prize for an Outstanding Contribution to Chinese Education Research (2015), Honorary Doctorate of Letters from the Open University of Hong Kong (2015), Honorary Doctorate in Humane Letters from Victoria University in Toronto (2019), the David Wilson Award for Distinguished Service from the Comparative International Education Society of Canada (2020), an Honorary Doctorate in Education from the University of St. Joseph in Macao (2025) and the Global Award for Innovation in Educational Research Methods from the East China Normal University in Shanghai (2025). Since 2024 she has served as Honorary President of the Chinese Society for Education.

She has supervised 33 doctoral students to completion, and served on over 70 doctoral thesis committees, guiding students in sustained field research on higher education issues in all of the following jurisdictions: China, Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, India, Pakistan, Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, France, Belgium, Estonia, Norway, Greenland, Tanzania, South Africa, Venezuela, Iraq and the U.A.E., as well as Canada and the USA.

For a copy of Ruth's updated CV, please click here.