TEPATE Mozambique
Theory-Practice Balance in Teacher Education: TEPATE Project

Why the TEPATE project?
School enrolment rates in Mozambique have improved considerably over the last decade. Unfortunately, school completion rates and learning outcomes have not improved at the same pace. The Theory-Practice Balance in Teacher Education Project aims at improving the quality and relevance of initial teacher training at the Mozambican partner HEIs and by so doing, support the efforts of the Mozambican government to improve the overall quality of education in the country.
How?
Teaching is a profession that requires theory-based pedagogical thinking incorporated into everyday actions of a teacher. This means that teachers are required to master both theoretical knowledge and research based-approaches as well as practical skills. In Mozambique, teacher education at the moment is regarded excessively theoretical, not providing graduating teachers with sufficient pedagogical skills to apply learner-centred pedagogy in practice. The TEPATE Project focuses on enhancing the theory-practice balance of teacher education at the Mozambican partner HEIs.
Our approach
The expected outcome of the project is increased capacity of the Mozambique partner HEIs to develop and deliver teacher education that provides teacher trainees with better skills to apply learner-centred pedagogy in practice. Besides academic teacher training, the TEPATE project also targets the non-academic teachers of the country by providing them with in-service training materials, as well as selected school managers in order to support the rooting of new pedagogical practices on a school level.
Expected Results
Trainers' study visit to Finland, working together at Jamk in Jyväskylä.

News
Training of Trainers - study visit to Finland
The TEPATE project brought 17 Mozambican teacher educators from two universities to Finland. The study visit is a part of the Training of Trainers programme, which aim is to capacitate teacher educators to develop and deliver theory-practice balanced teacher education.
Listen to the podcasts by the TEPATE project:
- Collaboration and Co-creation in the TEPATE project
- How has Covid affected Mozambique? How have the Mozambican education system and teachers coped in the pandemic, and what does the future hold.
- HEI ICI supporting the development of teacher education in Mozambique.
TEPATE kick off seminar on 24 November 2020
The seminar was organised as a hybrid event at the Central Library of the Universidade Pedagogica de Maputo, due to the current pandemic with restricted in-person participation. Online participation to the seminar was available in Zoom. The language of the seminar was Portuguese. Kick off Event's Programme (pdf)
Blog: Tackling the Global Learning Crisis - read about our recent activities!
Project management
The Project is managed by Principal Lecturer Irmeli Maunonen-Eskelinen from JAMK’s School of Professional Teacher Education.
With extensive experience from developing teacher education both in Finland and internationally, Irmeli has engaged with the HEI ICI Instrument since the launch of the Programme in Vietnam, Nepal, and Ethiopia.
Irmeli Maunonen-Eskelinen
Project partners - TEPATE project


