GCE in (T)VET: Pilot Project in Wallonia

BeGlobal launched, in collaboration with Entraide & Fraternité (E&F) and the Athénée Royal Rochefort-Jemelle, a pilot project to strengthen GCE competencies of students in Technical and Vocational Education and Training (T)VET. We did so during the school year of 2024–2025, using concrete case studies under the theme of “food sovereignty.”

The “See – Judge – Act” method lies at the heart of all of Entraide & Fraternité’s projects and served as the guiding thread for every workshop. Throughout this programme, it aimed to encourage students to develop their social skills in order to act on the world, always drawing on their own experiences, while also fostering their active involvement in their own education.

The pilot project pursued two objectives:

1. Developing teaching materials specifically tailored to the interests and needs of (T)VET students;
2. Encouraging (T)VET students to become responsible citizens.

The second objective was assessed using three indicators:

• The students became more curious as a result of the project;
• The students are considering different prospects than those they had envisaged before the project began;
• The students feel that their self-confidence had grown.

The pilot project consisted of six sessions with students specifically selected for this project. The students came from various fields of study within the vocational education program at the Athénée Royal de Rochefort-Jemelle high school, ranging from 10th to 12th grade: Sales, Childcare, Masonry, Computer Science, and Teaching Assistant.

“In what kind of ideal world do you want to live in ten to fifteen years?” The project alternated between participatory sessions, individual reflections, and discussion time in the classroom. This multidimensional approach catered to different learning styles and fostered student participation and engagement.

The group also visited real-world work settings, such as an ecological construction site and a local cooperative agroecological farm. There, they had the opportunity to meet people who are themselves thinking about their ideal world and actively bringing in their professional practice. This visit left a deep impression on the students. Afterward, the Masonry students even asked their practical course teachers to take the rest of the class on the same visit.

A significant number of students adjusted their habits and even began encouraging their family and friends to change their consumption patterns and how they interact with vulnerable people. The group raised the idea of going on an immersion trip: something they hadn’t previously considered. Both the teachers and the school psychologist noted a positive shift in terms of self-confidence and curiosity regarding GCE themes.

This impact was assessed based on both a self-evaluation and group discussions. This revealed that students were not always fully aware of the effect the programme had had on them. For example: “Although no student indicated in the self-evaluation that they had become more curious, the majority reported that they had searched for the themes covered during the project on social media, even though they had not done so previously.”

This program is part of BeGlobal’s “Global Citizenship Education (GCE) in Technical and Vocational Education and Training ((T)VET)” project, which launched two pilot projects during the 2024–2025 school year. Two schools, one on each side of the language border, developed and implemented a GCE pilot project in co-creation with NGOs. A pilot project was also set up in Flanders: a collaboration between KTA CLW Bruges and a consortium of the NGOs Djapo & Studio Globo.

Want to learn more about the pilot project in Dutch-speaking Belgium? Click here!