Session Information
04 SES 05 B, Teacher Training
Paper Session
Contribution
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It has been argued that higher education has irreversibly changed over the past 15 to 20 years. University education has moved from an elite system to a mass system. The frontiers of higher education have expanded more rapidly than they have ever done before by extensively moving across geographical boundaries and accommodating different forms of partnership, alliances and collaboration.
These strategic partnerships, collaborations and alliances seem to have blurred edges and though they are slightly different, they can all be used to describe some aspect of the Erasmus Mundus MA/Magistr in Special Education which was developed as a result of policy guidelines and funding from the European Commission (Europa Press Releases, 2007). It was designed to maximize the strengths of individual partners while also creating new opportunities for higher education engagement. In the 2009/10 cohort for the MA/Magistr in Special Education, 15 students came from 10 countries: Armenia, Australia, Ethiopia, Gambia, Ghana, Indonesia, Malawi, Malaysia, Netherlands. Uganda. A review of the nationality of the students who have participated in the programme since its inception in 2005 indicate only 14 of the 173 students or 8% came from developed countries like the United States of America, Canada, Israel, Australia, Norway, the Netherlands. The other 92% came from developing countries with the majority of students coming from the Indian sub-continent, followed by South East Asia and the African continent.
To arrive at the point of implementation, possible partners had to be identified, former networks had to be rekindled, new ones had be ignited, agreements had to be negotiated, curricula had to be developed, responsibilities had to be assigned and accepted, assessment and evaluations had to agreed upon in order to arrive at a workable outcome. This European Union Strategy has allowed the three universities involved in the programme to leverage creative partnerships and promote academic collaboration, thereby providing new approaches to cultural and academic learning for the course participants. Educators are usually called upon to be role models and as a programme, Erasmus Mundus has provided an example of inclusion through the meritocratic opportunities it had provided for students from many parts of the world to join the programme.
The paper will examine this unique Erasmus Mundus programme and identify some of the issues that pertain to globalisation and internationalisation of inclusive education primarily, drawing on interviews with current students and my own perspective as a recent scholar on the program.
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
Anderson, G. (1990). Fundamentals of educational research. Bristol, PA: Falmer Press. Europa Press Releases (2007). Erasmus Mundus II: a new boost for the EU's reference programme for cooperation with third countries in the field of higher education: FAQ. MEMO/07/292 Date 12/07/2007 Available at: http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=MEMO/07/292&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en Accessed: 2 April 2010
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