Internationalisation of Higher Education in Mozambique: The Case of Universidade Pedagógica

Abstract

Universities in today's world are characterised by an ever-increasing trend towards globalisation and high rates of mobility. Contrary to the relatively recent past in which citizens of less developed countries, of the "periphery", in Africa, Asia and South America, move to the more industrialised areas of the world, especially Eastern Europe, in search of the knowledge in various areas of knowledge that first world universities have to offer. In recent years there has also been a movement in the opposite direction and in other directions; movements in a south-north and north-south direction. New Paradigms? The universities of the world are increasingly aware of the importance of internationalisation, so much so that one of the main vehicles for this process and for attracting foreign students is the offer of courses in English. The case of Mozambique illustrates that English is not the only vehicle for internationalisation. The Pedagogical University (UP) has not been uninvolved in this process in recent years. In fact, it is an institutional directive to internationalise the Pedagogical University's undergraduate and postgraduate courses. In 2008, with the introduction of master's courses at UP, internationalization has been markedly accentuated through the creation of international partnerships and the process of teaching and student mobility. In this sense, the Pedagogical University has been receiving students from, for example, Vietnam, Tanzania, Angola, Germany and Namibia, just to mention a few examples. The most interesting thing in this process is that internationalisation, in the case of Mozambique, is processed through the Portuguese language.