Can a Jesuit University on one side of the world transform the lives of people halfway across the globe? German Jesuit Fr Peter Balleis believes so and his organisation has done it. Jesuit Worldwide Learning (JWL) is bringing Jesuit education to rural communities, refugees and indigenous peoples in Africa, the Americas, Middle East and Asia through an innovative approach of mobile learning.
Unlike massive open online courses which are purely web-based, JWL combines online learning with traditional classroom-style facilitation. Groups of 10 to 15 students meet twice a week at a community learning centre established by a local partner where they discuss their lessons with their classmates and a facilitator. The students are taught online by Jesuit universities either in North America, Europe, Africa or India but course materials can also be studied offline on a smartphone, tablet or notebook. JWL calls this “mobile learning” and it is enhancing digital learning by making it independent from permanent online connection, a big break for students with no home internet access.
During his trip to Asia where he spoke with Jesuit universities in Japan, Korea, Indonesia and the Philippines, Fr Balleis makes it clear that online learning does not replace traditional campus learning, but as good education drifts more and more toward the private sector, there is a need to find alternative solutions where the most impoverished communities can organise their education at an affordable cost.
The biggest barrier to accessing tertiary education is the lack of English language skills. JWL’s Global English Language programme is highly sought after by students who consider it a stepping stone to access higher education and enhanced employment opportunities. Done in collaboration with Cambridge Assessment, the programme provides an internationally-recognised approach to language learning. Last year, JWL had close to 4,000 students worldwide and a whopping 3,000 of them were enrolled in the programme. In Taunggyi, Myanmar where the Jesuits run an institute of higher studies, students who have spent a year in the Global English Language programme speak more English than their friends who have been learning English for three years.
Many of the students who finish the Global English Language programme move on to take either the professional or academic courses that JWL offers. These range from certificate courses to diploma to bachelor degrees. One that is in place in Myanmar is the Peace Leader course, which focusses on a better understanding of how conflicts evolve and on practical ways of resolving them. About 10 students from the Myanmar Leadership Institute are taking this certificate course given by Hekima College in Nairobi, Kenya.
Mobile learning allows students to study in a global classroom – Africans, Iraqis, Afghans, Syrians, Asians study together. This creates a global mindset that can be very enriching for students who want to have greater global exposure but cannot travel or study overseas. “Professors often comment that they feel enriched by the level of reflection and seriousness of the students because they have gone through the worst,” says Fr Balleis. Indeed, the students are committed because they know they don’t have too many other opportunities.
Before becoming JWL Executive President, Fr Balleis knew little about education. He was with the Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS) for 13 years, first as regional director in South Africa, then as international director. It was about this time that he was approached by universities who were interested in collaborating with JRS. “I said, ‘I don’t know about online, about universities, but I know about the poor, what they want, and what they want is to learn more,’” he recalls. He believes that being a generalist has its advantages. “Experts can sometimes be boxed up in their theories, their experience of university and campus. They are cautious about expanding to new places. The generalist’s advantage is to think outside the box and say, ‘Why not?’”
Fr Balleis sees the Universal Apostolic Preferences as an affirmation of their work. At the conference of the International Association of Jesuit Universities in Bilbao, Spain in 2018, Fr General Arturo Sosa posed an important challenge: how to overcome the geographic and social boundaries within which Jesuit universities operate. Yet, difficult as that challenge may be, the focus is not all about democratising education. At the heart of it is Jesuit formation. JWL follows the traditional five steps of Ignatian Pedagogy – context, experience, reflection, action and evaluation. Students are not taught simply to acquire academic credentials and then leave their villages to find jobs in bigger cities.
“We talk about being men and women for others,” says Fr Balleis. “These two women right here”, he points proudly at the photograph of two young women whose studies were interrupted by the war in Iraq in 2003 and again in 2014 by ISIS. “They have started their own learning centres in their village in Nineveh.” JWL is proud to see these women and all their graduates actively leading and working alongside others to transform the world. “It’s not about making it cheaper for the poor,” says Fr Balleis. “It’s providing the best for the least.”
Know more about Jesuit Worldwide Learning in their latest annual report here.