eNSPIRED: The impact of international dialogue

In this publication we look back at what the eNSPIRED program has achieved in recent years. Since 2014, we have been organizing workshops, seminars and learning weeks for teacher educators, pedagogical counselors and (future) teachers with education experts from countries in Africa, Asia and South America. We motivate students, teachers and pedagogical counselors to look for interesting educational practices during their internship abroad that can give a boost to Flemish policy and practice regarding equal educational opportunities.

From 2017, the activities around eNSPIRED took shape. An advisory group, consisting of representatives of our partner organisations, defined a number of core themes. Each academic year, one of those themes was put in the spotlight and formed the common thread of the activities on the program that year. This overview publication reviews six themes: intercultural pedagogy (2015), inclusive education (2016), vulnerability in the classroom (2017-2018), gender (2018-2019), multilingualism (2019-2020) and professional learning communities (2021) .

Every year we treated our participants to a guest lecture, in which an international expert sheds light on the annual theme from an international perspective, paying attention to the most important challenges. Afterwards, a learning week was organized with a delegation of educational experts from countries in Africa, Asia and South America who shared their inspiring practices with professionals from the educational field in Flanders. Educational challenges and possible solutions were discussed in dialogue.

These activities are the driving force behind eNSPIRED, where invaluable materials were exchanged that illustrate, in word and image, theory and practice.

This publication is a collection of all expertise collected and shared in the period 2014-2021 in the field of equal educational opportunities and international dialogue. eNSPIRED wants to be a guide and source of inspiration to stimulate the internationalization of education in Flanders. By boosting the development of international and intercultural competences, we want to give a new impetus to the development of global citizenship competences.