What is PEP?
PEP is an Erasmus+ capacity building project to develop student and staff capacity for professional spoken and written English at six universities in Mali, Ivory Coast and Burkina Faso.
Why PEP?
In the francophone Higher Education sector, the lack of advanced English skills means that students and researchers alike are limited in their ability to share their knowledge and expertise with the international scientific community.
The capacity building of staff and students´ English proficiency will in the short run (by the end of the project, May 2026), strengthen the English language and scientific writing capacity of students and researchers at the francophone universities and the capacity of partners to offer Professional English Programs. The employability and attractiveness of Master´s and PhD students will increase.
In the medium to long run (2026-2031), the modernisation of their Professional English Programs will increase the universities’ ability to do more international research, education and collaboration.
The researchers will significantly strengthen their ability to publish in English language journals, present their research at international conferences and participate more actively in international research collaborations including securing funding for international research projects and thereby become self-sufficient.
How?
The PEP project combines teacher training and exchanges of good practices in language teaching with piloting new courses and strategic discussions of institutional implementation of Professional English Programs.
Developing the framework and strategies for the implementation of six Professional English Programs, for example:
- Curriculum design
- Learning objectives
- Selection of students for the course
- Grading
- Evaluation
Performing teacher trainings
- for at least 13 English language teachers from Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast and Mali.
- with the "Train the trainer"-methodology.
- in-person or digital meetings.
Developing and testing two pilot courses
- Pilot course 1: Oral communication in English for at least 15 graduate students per West African partner (total 90 students).
- Pilot course 2: Written Academic English for at least 15 researchers per West African partner (90 researchers).
PEP will also publish a handbook with recommendations, good practice examples and the course models developed by the PEP consortium.
PEP runs between June 1, 2023 – May 31, 2026 (3 years).
