In October and November 2021, Annoncer La Couleur and Kruit - the French and Flemish-speaking global citizenship education programmes from Enabel in Belgium - and Enabel’s Teacher Training Education project (TTE) organized two intercultural knowledge sharing exchange visits between lecturers from the NTCs in Uganda and teacher trainers in Belgium.

The purpose of this year’s Annoncer La Couleur visit was to improve intercultural competences of both Belgian and Ugandan lecturers; strengthen relations between Enabel in Uganda and Belgian partners; anchor Global Citizenship Education in the NTCs; and, share the good practices related to Technology Enhanced Learning and Active Teaching and Learning.

Likewise, for the Kruit exchange visit, the aim was to share how colonial history is addressed in both the Flemish and Ugandan education systems; reflect on lessons learnt from colonial history in terms of decolonisation and work collectively on interesting topics about colonial history.

Annoncer La Couleur exchange visit for GTM lecturers

The Annoncer La Couleur was a return of last year’s visit of teacher trainers from Belgium to the National Teachers’ Colleges in Uganda in March 2020. It was a weeklong event filled with activities directly linked to pedagogy in the National Teachers Colleges such a; classroom observations, an introduction to the Belgium teacher education system, understanding the Global Citizenship Education program, and understanding Belgian culture through site visits.

While in Belgium, the team of General Teaching Methods’ lecturers kicked off their visit at Henallux in Malonne, a teacher training institution. While there, they discovered flexible learning spaces, learnt about the Henallux library, observed a Physical Education lesson and shared good practices on ICT in teaching and learning.

They were then hosted at the Enabel Headquarters and introduced to workshops on Global Citizenship Education, and an insightful framework for ethical global pedagogy, called ‘HEADS UP’. Later on, the team was welcomed at Helha college and La Maison des Phenix secondary school where they came across various ICT tools used for teaching and learning and observed English, Music, Geography and History lessons.

To conclude this visit, the GTM lecturers toured the great city of Gent and explored historic architecture going as far back as the 1700s. They also had an opportunity to visit Krook library, a wonderful space for interaction, research and knowledge building.

Kruit exchange visit for history teachers
The Kruit exchange visit was focused on bringing history teacher trainers together to share knowledge on how the colonial past is addressed in history education in both the Ugandan and Belgian education contexts.

The key activities of this exchange included field visits and workshops particularly focused on teaching colonial history in contemporary times with a specific emphasis on adopting multiple perspectives on decolonisation.

During the visit, the team spent some time at Enabel Headquarters and participated in a workshop on Ethical Global Issues pedagogy from which they gained skills on how to think through and apply critical literacy in teaching. They were further challenged to use the HEADS UP tool during a session on teaching about history in a post-colonial context. A very sensitive but interesting topic on teaching about slavery in a post-colonial context and its impact was also explored at the workshop. As part of this session, the team was presented with research findings from the shared colonial past in Belgian and Congolese school text books and their evolving representations by an expert team in Global Citizenship Education at Enabel HQ.

Towards the end of the trip, the NTC history lecturers interacted with Belgian teacher trainers connected to the KUL (Catholic University of Leuven) and BimSem secondary school in Mechelen. While at these institutions, they were introduced to various colonial history teaching practices through lesson observations and discussions. The two teams also participated in a brainstorming session on lesson packages to develop together on a selected history topic applicable in both contexts and discussed the criteria for a manual on colonial history education for which they will co-create in March 2022 when the Kruit team visits Uganda.

The trip was topped with an exciting guided tour to the Royal Museum of Central Africa in Tervuren- formerly known as the Belgian colonial museum for Congo used for propaganda to justify King Leopold II’s colonial rule over Congo.

All in all, the exchange visits were exciting knowledge-sharing experiences for the teams from Uganda and Belgium for which they hope to share with the rest of the NTC Community.    

Visit the sites provided for more on the exchange visits:
Annoncer La Couleur: https://bit.ly/3nBBEgX
Kruit: https://bit.ly/3xm7rH1

To access last year’s exchange visit: https://bit.ly/3dHX9Iq