Energised and Illuminated: Réalt Students Return
Energised and Illuminated: B.Ed. Students Return from an Eight-Week Teaching and Learning Placement in Uganda with the IoE’s Réalt Programme
On Thursday last, 9th August, a group of second-year and third-year students from the B.Ed. (Primary) programme at the Institute of Education, DCU, returned safe and sound from Uganda. They had just completed an eight-week placement of teaching and learning over the Summer break, as part of the Réalt Teaching and Learning Programme.
They had been looking for an experience that offered adventure, high levels of challenge and reward, increased understanding of different cultures and unforgettable memories. Initial reports of their experiences, suggest their Réalt experience delivered on all of these fronts, though not always in the ways they expected! Reports form host colleges referred to the significant contribution our students made to the life and learning of these institutions during their stay. They were praised for brining great credit to the Institute of Education, to the university and their country generally. Well done and many thanks to each and every one of you for this.
The Réalt Teaching and Learning Programme has been placing Irish student teachers in a wide range of African settings since 1998. It also organises a comprehensive programme of preparation and debriefing to support participants before, during and after placement. In 2016, the programme began to operate exclusively within the Institute of Education, DCU. This year, it placed the twelve students photographed in a range of Ugandan Primary Teacher-Training Colleges (PTCs) with whom the Institute of Education has now developed very close ties. There are four key elements to placements:
- Working with tutors/lecturers and student-teachers in host colleges to affect cultural exchange and exchange of educational ideas and practices
- Completing teaching practice in local mainstream primary schools
- Visiting and working in local special schools
- Getting involved in local community-based projects that are targeted at alleviating stress, poverty or exploitation
If you are interested in completing a placement with the Réalt Teaching and Learning Programme programme during the 2018-19 academic year, or if you know of a someone who may wish to do so, please contact Lorraine NíGháirbhith at lorraine.nighairbhith@dcu.ie or Eamonn McCauley at eamonn.mccauley@dcu.ie. You can also find more information about the programme here. In the coming year, the programme will offer up to 20 suitable student teachers in the second, third or fourth years of their programme, the opportunity to live, work and learn in Uganda from late June to mid-August, 2019. Placements are accompanied by a mandatory programme of preparation and debriefing on this experience. Returnees can, if they wish, gain additional credit on their transcript of results by undertaking the Uaneen Module, based on their engagement with the Réalt programme.
Watch out for presentations that will be made to second-year and third-year B.Ed. students in the coming weeks, by those who travelled with the Réalt Teaching and Learning Programme this year!