As a renowned university, Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE) and in particular, its Faculty of Education Psychology (PPK), seeks to create a truly international and multicultural environment. The Doctoral School of Education at PPK thus started hosting a series of events aimed at enhancing the multicultural environment in the university. The workshops aim at exposing the university’s community to the cultures and educational practices of different countries.
One such event was the “African Day”, hosted and organized by doctoral students from different countries in Africa. The event was held on 6th December 2019.
Understanding how diverse Africa is and how broad the topics could be, the organizers selected a few areas that they could share with the community. Given that the main organizers were doctoral students in education, they chose to focus on the educational practices of the selected countries, with an emphasis on Higher education and Teacher Education. They also supplemented the cultural exposure of the event with a short show on African dances, famous and historical places, as well the diverse African cuisine. Represented countries were Ghana, Ethiopia, Kenya and Tanzania from students’ side, and Nigeria by Her Excellence Ambassador Dr. (Mrs) Eniola Olaitan Ajayi.
This historical and joyful “African Day” event was well organized by our fellow students from the Teacher Education and Higher Education Studies (EDiTE), the Adult Learning and Education, and the Theoretical-Historical Pedagogy programmes at PPK. The workshop was open to all members of the ELTE Community, participants were professors, doctoral, MA and BA students from various faculties and nationalities. It was an interesting event, where organizers did their best to involve participants in various activities such as dancing, eating together common African food, like, ugali, chapati and pilau as well as physical and visual exhibition of African arts, fabric, accessories, historical and famous places.
H. E. Ambassador Dr. Ajayi, gave a special note, showing gratitude to the Government of Hungary for the Educational support and opportunities it gives to young African scholars, as well as special thanks and presents to the Faculty of Education and Psychology for its support to the international community with such events and collaboration. On the other hand, Professor Dr. Gabor Halasz, the then Head of the Doctoral School, thankfully received the present on behalf of the Doctoral School community and also gave a speech on the importance of such events in the Faculty for enhancing collaboration not only among students themselves and their professors, but also the University and other government agencies in Hungary representing different countries.
This event enabled to widen students’, professors’ and other participants’ understanding and knowledge concerning education systems and cultural practices of Africa. This in turn contributes to teaching and learning processes. Organizers and participants were eager to see similar events and are ready to support and participate so that the benefits of living in our international community can be felt and used in our lifelong learning process.