We believe that students and teachers must learn together in and with their communities, and what they learn must be tested and refined in the encounter with actions of change in the daily reality of life.
What we say here doesn’t happen by itself. It is the obligation of the school to design a programme, understood as a framework of main activities arranged in themes and sequences. The programme gives direction to students and teachers alike; it expresses progression from the initial getting together as a group of students with their teachers having the same goal, to reaching that overall goal, the finalization of the training. The well-designed programme creates spaces in time and place – periods – where students and teachers have the privilege to focus and concentrate; where they search for new knowledge and create it; where they meet with friends of the school and create new friendships when they confront what they have learnt with the reality around them.
Let us listen to some examples of how students and teachers learn together with and in their communities, and what happens when they present their new knowledge to the people they learnt from.
Jorge Sipitali, is a third year student at ADPP Angola’s Teacher Training School Benguela. In 2021 he learnt about how to mobilize parents so they promote and develop skills of children with disabilities as part of preparing them for integration in society.
“The activities that I have carried out under the ‘All United for early childhood’ project, helped me to understand the importance of engaging parents in inclusive education for all children, irrespective of disability.
It has been a great experience to work with families, mobilize them to accept their children’s condition. I have to love children first and give them the same opportunities in life,” says Jorge.
Isa Covane graduated in 2013 with a Licentiate in Community Development at ISET – One World University from ADPP Mozambique.
“The practical classes impressed me the most, as it was through internship that I became professional and familiarized with the practical side of real life circumstances in Mozambique.
I had the opportunity to visit big organizations, exchanging experiences and applying what I have learnt in various subjects taught at the institution, like procedures from preparing a baseline study to the implementation of a designed project,” says Isa.
