Our goals

This project’s main goal is to increase internationalization and student mobility in Norwegian teacher education programs for primary and lower secondary schools, by establishing and developing a partnership between UIT- The Arctic University of Norway – and Nelson Mandela University in South Africa, as well as between the universities and schools in Norway and in South Africa; the aim is to strengthen and improve the quality in our international teacher practice.

Increased student- and teacher mobility

increased student- and teacher mobility is the main purpose of the project. The mobility shall strengthen the supervision and mentor perspective by knowing the students’ cultural and professional background – and strenghten the professional praxis in schools. To develop the relation will create sustainable partnerships for the future. We will, if possible, increase the student mobility by the last two yearof the project when we see how the budget plan works.

Workshops to develop knowledge and explore common and diverse perspectives

yearly workshops would be established to develop knowledge and explore common and diverse perspectives (democracy and citizenship, sustainable development, public health and well-being). Areas of interest within these perspectives have so far been curriculum for social justice, diversity education broken down into gender, class, colour, religion and sexuality, amongst others, multilingual and multi-cultural education.

The results of the workshops will be mutual development of knowledge among teacher educators and students, teachers and principals. One theme already planned is to have joint research projects with students, teachers and researchers to develop teaching resources connected to the overall focus for the different years in the project. These workshops will create extended knowledge about similarities and differences between our two different school- and teacher-education systems, and how we share and differ in the understanding of basic and important concepts in all levels of education. This shared knowledge will make a solid platform for future collaboration after the project period, and when we will collaborate more using technology.

Developing international courses

Our third goal is to develop courses that can be a part of an international semester. This will strengthen the focus of internationalization in our teacher education. Our goal is to offer courses in English for Norwegian and international students. The courses will be developed as modules in existing courses, for UIT LRU 3000. The semester will consist of three different elements: 2 courses (each 10 ects) + supervised practicum (10 ects). Content in the courses will be a comparison of different educational practices, where we use the student’s experiences in teaching from their home country as assets on the course. This course will be open for all students, and could continue after the project period. Courses at NMU would be developed for students from UiT linked to their practicums in South African schools. The content of the courses would be tailor-made for Norwegian students linked to their subject interest, and the same focus on global teaching as the courses offered at UIT.

We will explore the possibilities of using technology to continue the dialogue and communication after the project period: net based courses, shared digital
platforms for communication, use and development of videos and visual learning resources to be used in both countries, establish digital contact between school-classes in Norway and South Africa.