Hubs of Open & Participatory Education for Digitally Connected Learning (HOPE)

Innovative project idea

The project idea emerged from a critical conceptual reflection rooted in epistemologies of the South (de Sousa Santos, 2016), and a radical methodological reflection guided by Open Science and Open Education (Godrie et al., 2022; Udoewa, 2022). The rationale is to test and implement an innovative didactic concept, leveraging on diverse knowledge systems to challenge the predominant way of knowing and understanding the world, and to revisit the paths in which education and learning are constructed. As a research-based, goal-oriented, trans-disciplinary, international, engaging, and individualized pedagogic project, three key aspects are of utmost importance to the design of the didactics: 1) initiation, i.e., who initiates the learning activities; 2) participation, i.e., how participation takes place throughout the learning process; and 3) leadership, i.e., how leadership is distributed among learners, instructors, and other involved stakeholders (e.g., NGO partners in this project). We hold that addressing education at the epistemic and ontological levels contributes to sharpening our collective understandings about identity, culture, and politics. This broadened horizon, in turn, liberates creativity, invites alternative perspectives, and inspires novel ideas of shaping a sustainable future that is desired by society. Fig 1 below offers a visual impression to illustrate the didactic theory of change.

Further, we propose in this project to develop a key thematic focus on Digital Skills as a new COS
supported by the COIL model, following the deployment of the first two COS on Community Health and Education in Emergencies. While the first two subjects correspond to sectors of potential employment opportunities for students, the third subject aims at enhancing their digital literacy and equip them with skills that are readily applicable for entering the job market afterwards – be it in the refugee camps and host communities, or at home in Switzerland. The proposed COS model also has the particularity of being co-constructed with partner national universities and humanitarian organizations present in the refugee camps. For example, existing partners include the UNHCR, the International Organization of Migration (IOM), the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), and the International Federation of the Red Cross (IFRC), among others. They are active in education in local communities and have been supporting the HOPE infrastructure via financing, e.g., the FabLab facilities in the leaning hubs, or the COS scholarships to refugee learners. This collaborative approach generates added values for teaching in concrete ways – it helps contextualize the teaching materials of the COIL module, better targets useful learning pathways, and facilitates applicability of learning outcomes from within the learning processes. Fig 2 below sketches the COS development process.

Added value for students and teaching

The added values generated by the innovative learning experiences proposed in this project encompass three dimensions: epistemic, ontological, and methodological. Conceptually, the notion of “development” – created by the Global North and the West at its own advantages – often arbitrarily defines what counts as “developed” and “under-developed” and places “the majority of countries on the wrong side of history” (de Sousa Santos, 2016). In the education sector, this prevailing mindset promotes the indifferent distribution of pre-defined and ready-made education contents which are, oftentimes, of little relevance to the diverse geographic, cultural, and educational backgrounds of learners, and of little sensitivity to the learners’ particular living environments and individual learning needs (Monaghan, 2015; Farag et al., 2022). Consequently, key learning objectives within the constructive alignment framework, such as problem-solving, critical thinking, collaboration, and self-learning skills, are not necessarily effectively met with the most optimal outcomes. This project suggests a paradigm shift in scientific cooperation between the North and the South through Open Education. We propose to foster a co-created learning environment in which the learners themselves, ranging from students in Switzerland to refugees and IDPs in crisis and transit situations, are the very actors and vectors of knowledge (co)production (Yeo & Yoo, 2022). The underlying driving force is to bring academic and indigenous knowledge into dialogue, following an approach that recognizes and honors the validity of epistemologies and pedagogies of the so-called “under-developed” (de Sousa Santos, 2016; Akkari & Fuentes, 2021). It, thus, promotes the integration of diverse knowledge systems that Open Science calls for (UNESCO, 2021; EduTechWiki, 2022), relies on reconnections to and reflections of indigenous knowledge repertoires (Petrovic & Mitchell, 2018; Tuhiwai Smith et al., 2019), and supports the introductions to and applications of different forms of knowledge in creative, empowering, and solution-oriented ways. In the refugee context, the United Nations High Commission of Refugees sets the target that, by 2030, 15% of refugees and IDPs can have access to higher education (UNHCR, 2019). However, humanitarian organizations and development programs aiming at addressing this need are faced with local challenges, including logistics of the camps, language of instruction, level of poverty, status of rights of refugees, etc. Among all, the challenge of accommodating large populations of refugees and IDPs with reduced integration capacities to access education is the most prominent and, hence, poses an urgent need for new opportunities to tackle it. Although the needs are immense, the presence of higher education actors in these contexts, often at border regions with a high level of insecurity, is discouraging. Local universities exist in theory, but they encounter great challenges of workforce massification and infrastructure degradation. Against this backdrop, the co-creation of digitally connected education resources using a participatory and co-creation approach becomes a moral imperative for higher education institutions such as UZH and UNIGE. With this humanitarian purpose, coupled with the Internationalization@Home opportunities the project can offer, we expect to attract a large number of students from various study programs of both universities, and about 50- 70 refugee learners per annual from the filed, to actively take part in the innovative and stimulating initiative.

Factsheet

23_HOPE (PDF, 1 MB)