TRANSLED

Transformation, Language, Education and Development

Call for Papers

Launching of Transled 14th through the 16th of January.

The launch of the TRANSLED project will take place in the form of a workshop held at Zanzibar Beach resort in Zanzibar from the morning of the 14th through the 16th of January. We hereby invite potential paper presenters to submit the title of the paper they want to present along with an abstract of not more than 200 words to Ameir Mohammed, e-mail: ameirmoody@gmail.com with a copy to Birgit Brock-Utne, e-mail: birgit.edcon@gmail.com before the 1st of January. The following three key-note presenters have accepted our invitation: Dr.Maryam Ismail, SUZA, Tanzania, Prof.Leketi Makalela, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa, Prof.Ola Erstad, UiO, Norway

TRANSLED has as its main research focus dropout rates and school leavers from the education system. As part of this main topic for the project we have defined key areas that we want to explore further as part of the Masters and PhD programs that we are now instituting at SUZA and UDSM. The first core area is about the language of instruction in the education system. If students do not use the language they are confident in the risk of failing and of dropping out of school will increase. The second core area concerns gender and generation studies. Do girls have a higher risk of leaving school at certain stages of schooling than boys, and in case why is this so?. Generation studies are important because they say something about how the support for schooling is at home, and the experiences from parents and grandparents about the importance of schooling. The third core area we have called ‘computer and information literacy’. This also raises issues of skills and competences needed for learning and teaching in the 21st century.