Case study

To transform teaching and learning in African universities through innovation.

African university lecturers often don’t receive sufficient training in innovative methods and pedagogies, and teaching excellence is not recognised, which has a negative impact on the learning environment and on graduates’ abilities to use their knowledge to address local needs and find innovative solutions to developmental challenges.

Building on an existing partnership of 13 universities across seven African countries, the Pedagogical Leadership in Africa training programme (PEDAL) worked to entrench innovative pedagogy within social science, arts and humanities and science programmes.

This learning programme draws on IDS’ unique history and experience of participatory, gender-sensitive teaching methods orientated towards developing skills of real world problem-solving.

The PEDAL approach encourages educators to use participatory methodologies and move away from the form of educating where the lecturer is the expert who tells the class what they need to know in a factual and literal way.

Pedagogical tools include case studies, flipped classroom, simulations, role plays and threshold concept tools such as concept maps aimed at maximising learning outcomes among students.

The PedaL model fosters capacity-building at scale, notably through its ‘training of trainers’ approach. Core resource people lead workshops and support promising participants to become trainers themselves. They then teach others beyond their country of residence.

IDS’s role was to support PEDAL’s pedagogical approach and to help maintain quality and rigour in activities.

PEDAL is part of the UK-Aid-funded Strategic Partnerships for Higher Education Innovation and Reform (SPHEIR) programme. SPHEIR is managed on behalf of the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office by a consortium led by the British Council that includes PwC and Universities UK International.

It is delivered in partnership with universities in Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Tanzania and Uganda. These include:

• Egerton University
• Ibadan University
• University of Dar es Salaam
• University of Ghana
• Uganda Martyrs University
• University of Sussex

The partnership is led by Dr Beatrice Muganda of the Partnership for African Social and Governance Research (PASGR) in Nairobi.

IDS staff involved in the delivery of the programme included:

• Linda Waldman, Research Fellow
• Jethro Pettit, Emeritus Fellow

Since it began in 2018:

• PEDAL has enhanced the teaching and facilitation skills of 2,763 educators from more than 90 universities across eleven African countries. 60 per cent of these educators were women.
• 44 per cent of participating staff were trained face-to-face and the remainder received online training. Both variants of the training have been hailed as transformational by the teaching staff as well as university leaderships.
• Participating staff have gone on to redesign more than 1,572 course modules, directly influencing the learning outcomes of more than 5,108 students (60 per cent male, 40 per cent female) in PEDAL’s targeted social science degree programmes and up to 100,000 more across the hundreds of university departments reached by the project across the continent.
• More than 80 participants have become trainers, sharing the learning from PEDAL with other members of teaching staff in their host institutions as well as in universities based in other countries.
• A dedicated PEDAL channel is available on the Association of African Universities TV and a pedagogical leadership series is available on YouTube.

Senior lecturers who attended the training programme said it inspired and challenged them to become innovative in teaching to develop social scientists who can connect with the social realities and assist in meeting the challenges of sustainable development. Academics in the Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) subjects have also been inspired to use PedaL pedagogies for improved student learning outcomes.

Kwame Asah-Asante, a senior lecturer in the department of political science at the University of Ghana, said the programme provided new perspectives on teaching philosophies, curriculum development and innovative assessment.

PedaL’s wide-ranging impact is attributed to its structure, reputable members, African values and transformational leadership.