About

Development Education Week in the Education Department NUIM is organised as part of the Professional Diploma in Education Programme (PDE) and takes place in early December each year.

We live in a world characterised by injustices. Issues of global inequality are difficult ones for which there are rarely simple answers. This component of the PDE course is based on the belief that education for world democracy, for human rights and for sustainable human development are central concerns for the school curriculum. Indeed, education has a vital role to play an advancing the international development agenda. Therefore, all teachers deserve opportunities to consider the world through the eyes and ears of the victims of global injustice. Furthermore, they deserve support in incorporating such perspectives into their everyday classroom teaching, irrespective of their subject areas.

The particular perspective on education fostered by ‘Development Education’ is one that sees students as active agents in their own learning. A critical, questioning approach is favoured over one that might tell them what to think or even one that dramatises the horrors of poverty and famine. Methodologies associated with ‘Development Education’ tend to be active and so are of real practical benefit to students in a wide variety of education settings.

Of course, it goes without saying that these features: promoting concern, empathy and a sense of responsibility towards others; encouraging student autonomy and developing approaches that are active, critical and questioning are also features of good teaching. Thus, the ‘Development Education’ component is an essential, integral and compulsory part of the PDE course.

This site presents an overview of the week: its purpose, structure and the programme of events, as well as links to relevant sites and resources.