On Monday 23.04.2019 Soprano Plc and JAMK University of Applied Sciences started their Finnish led teacher professional development program in Mozambique. The content and implementation for the course are provided by Soprano and JAMK and in Mozambique, the local partner is Universidade Pedagogica. The aim of the brand-new pilot project is to launch a training program to provide vocational training for 200.000 teachers in Mozambique onsite, remote and online.

The pilot phase of Soprano’s educational export operations in Mozambique started on Easter Monday, 22.4.2019 in Maputo, the capital of the country. The Universidade Pedagogica, which focuses on professional teacher professional development in Mozambique, was attended by educated teacher trainers, the management of the University and the Finnish representation of Soprano and JAMK. Representatives of the Mozambican Ministry of Education and the World Bank are also following the on-site pilot training in Maputo. Soprano MIF Academy and JAMK have jointly developed a Mozambican-Finnish Education Quality Development Program, which is based on developing teacher education. The resulting emerging knowledge and education system will remain in Mozambique as a permanent part of the Universidade Pedagogica.

The cornerstone of Finnish education is the pedagogical excellence of our teachers. This expertise has global demand and now we are exporting it to developing countries. If, after the Mozambique pilot, we move on to the Letter of Intent, our first task is to train about 100-200 teacher trainers. In the next step, we train a total of 1000-2000 instructors, working with them all over the country. In the third stage, the guiding teachers support the training of local teachers. The process is multifaceted, but only by raising teachers’ level of education and increasing the number of qualified teachers can we influence the positive development of the target country, says Arto Tenhunen, CEO of the training company Soprano.

There is more than 9,000 kilometers between the pupil and the teacher

When there is more than 9,000 kilometers between a Finnish teacher and a Mozambican pupil, teaching cannot be entirely done onsite. The solution is found online. Now, however, it is not that the student would go to Youtube and watch videos there in their own time. The teaching program produced by Soprano’s MIF Academy takes place in three modes: on-site, remote and online. – In the pilot phase, our students are in Maputo. If the pilot goes to the project stage, students are all over Mozambique. In the case of a country that is over 3,000 kilometers long, it is challenging in many ways and it is clear that teaching should also be available online. The network is set up so that the teacher has a direct, professional-level remote connection to the classroom allowing the pupils can talk to the teacher during the lesson. Online learning is supported by artificial intelligence that helps the student move forward with content and at a speed that is right for them. The Universidade Pedagogica has 13,000 students

Founded in 1986, Universidade Pedagogica UP is located in Maputo, Mozambique’s capital. – When the Universidade Pedagogica was founded, it focused specifically on teacher training. The university’s pedagogical background was one of the main reasons why UP was selected as our training partner in Mozambique. Today, the University offers training programs in other fields in addition to teacher training. In the future, we will also see these other programs as possible areas of cooperation, Tenhunen says. – The Ministry of Education, the Embassy of Finland in Mozambique and the World Bank have contributed to this by building a pilot project for Finnish education exports. With their help, we have received high-level meetings to organize and launch our pilot project, Tenhunen, CEO of the training company Soprano Plc.