Universidade Metodista Unida de Moçambique [UMUM] Challenges for Quality Education

Abstract

Starting from the principles that guide UMUM, not forgetting the points of reference of the transdisciplinary evolution of education - from/to reality - and bearing in mind that the student structure guides the organization of courses, we will problematize the option of offering, in the 1st year of the degree, a set of four curricular units’ transversal to all courses. Aware that education implies the experience of interculturality and social inclusion, the aim will be to identify the role that language plays in the discovery of the self, in its acceptance and consolidation, so that it is viable to communicate, act and (con)live in society; in the experience of the self with the other; in the collaborative construction of knowledge and know-how. Hence, the transversal curricular units chosen to induce and enhance a quality education have been Portuguese, as an official language, English, as a lingua franca, Information and Communication Technologies, as mediators of communication, promoters of networks and learning communities for the construction of knowledge, and also Dialogues, Peace and Development, providing a balanced emergence of the subject per se, in its relationship with the other and with the world - knowing how to be and knowing how to live together. We will, then, question the methodology to be used in these curricular units, respecting their specificities, sustaining the scientific areas contemplated in each course, in an inter and transdisciplinary dynamic, involving the students in reality and in the complexity of knowledge and, in complementarity, shredding the teachers for collaborative work.