Liesbeth

It’s a typical cold, grey day in Hasselt when I meet Irene, Thomas and Curthbert, MSc scholars in the VLIR-UOS IUC-project with Ardhi University (ARU) in Dar es Salaam (Tanzania). Their big smile immediately brings a warm feeling into the room and when we start talking about their stay in Belgium, they immediately mention that the most difficult thing to adapt to was the Belgian weather.  They have been studying and living in Hasselt for almost six months now and luckily all three of them really feel at home here.

I ask them about their expectations before they arrived and how it has been different from what they have experienced so far. To my pleasant surprise their answer is “We expected it to be difficult to integrate in Belgium, but this was not the case at all because everyone is very helpful and friendly and speaks English”. Irene was especially surprised how organized the city of Hasselt is and Thomas and Curthbert are inspired by the Belgian public transport.

In a few weeks, two of them are going back to Tanzania and so I ask them to tell me something about what they have learned in their study programmes at UHasselt and will take back home. Immediately, it is clear that their stay does not only have a personal impact. Irene, Thomas and Curthbert are lecturers and tutors at ARU and plan to share the experiences and skills they acquired in Belgium during their teaching assignments. They all confirm that they have broadened their horizon, got in touch with different views, see opportunities from a different perspective and can give students better advice.

Furthermore, all three of them hope to share their knowledge beyond the university walls. In Tanzania, the national government often calls upon the expertise of academics (consultancy) for the implementation of new projects. Irene hopes that the government will consult her so she can share what she has learned with respect to adaptive reuse. She emphasizes that in Tanzania there are many cities with heritage buildings and thanks to the MSc programme at UHasselt she has learned to see the potentials for these buildings. Thomas and Curthbert want to take home the intelligent transport solutions and advanced technologies that they familiarized themselves with in the MSc programme in Transportation Sciences.  They reveal that in Dar es Salaam a lot of focus is put on the infrastructural aspect of transportation, but that it is crucial to also incorporate technology. The students give as example that in Dar es Salaam, bus stops are always very crowded because people are waiting for hours, since they don’t know when the bus will come. As a result, public transport is only used by the poorest layer of the population and traffic is terrible because everyone prefers to use cars, boda boda (moto taxis) and bajaji (tricyles). The technology of having an app in which you can see the timetable, stops and even live tracking of a bus is something Thomas and Curthbert learned during their stay in Belgium and found very inspiring.

Within ARU, the three scholars want to promote the use of shared google drive, implement an information sharing platform (e.g. blackboard) and advocate for (free) access to software for students.

My last question for our Tanzanian visitors is what UHasselt could learn or implement from ARU. Irene, Thomas and Curthbert think about it for a minute and then unanimously respond that the continuous assessment system in ARU (70% final exam, 30% other tests/assignments) could serve as example for UHasselt. During the academic semester here, all three of them experienced the lack of feedback and had the feeling they didn’t really know how they were doing and progressing.

Sharing good practices between universities across the globe thus remains inspiring, as we can all learn from each other.

Thank you Irene Msuya, Thomas Njanda and Curthbert Njele