The traineeships, organised through the Faculty of Educational Sciences at the University of Helsinki, provided students with hands-on experience in international education research and development work. During the traineeships, the interns worked closely with the research team on several aspects of the project, ranging from qualitative data collection to project reporting and stakeholder coordination.
For master’s student Kinza Arif, one of the most memorable moments of the traineeship took place thousands of kilometres away from Helsinki. During a project visit to Kigali, she facilitated focus group discussions with students, lecturers, and academic leaders at the University of Rwanda, College of Education.
The conversations centred on newly developed tools designed to help teachers reflect on their teaching and gather feedback from students. Listening to the different perspectives around the table gave Arif a new appreciation for how educational tools are interpreted in practice.
“Facilitating the discussions required careful moderation so that participants could share their experiences openly,” she says. “It was fascinating to see how students and academic leaders sometimes viewed the same tools from very different angles.”
These discussions were part of research workshops with Finnish and Rwandan colleagues working on the project, and students. The sessions created space for discussions about pedagogical development, professional learning, and the realities of teaching in different institutional contexts.
“What stayed with me most was how often students wanted more room to explain their experiences in their own words rather than rely only on fixed-response formats,” Arif reflects. “That showed how important more open and dialogic approaches can be when the aim is to understand the complexity of teaching and learning. It also suggested that these tools are most useful when they create space for reflection, not only for collecting responses.”
Odutola Odubanjo had the opportunity to observe research collaboration in Kigali, an experience that opened up many new perspectives for him.
“Being in Kigali allowed me to see research beyond theory. Observing classroom practices and engaging with local educators made me realise how context shapes both teaching and research in powerful ways.”
Odubanjo supported the HEP-TED research team in several research and coordination tasks. His work included assisting with qualitative data collection and classroom observations at the University of Rwanda College of Education, organising research data for analysis, and contributing to the preparation of project reports. He also participated in coordination meetings and supported the organisation of visits by Rwandan project partners to Finland.
“Being part of the coordination meetings gave me insight into how a multi-partner international research project is managed,” Odubanjo notes. “It showed how important communication and planning are when working across institutions and countries.”
Working within a multicultural research environment was a central learning experience for both interns. Collaboration between Finnish and Rwandan colleagues highlighted how differences in institutional contexts and resources can become opportunities for dialogue and shared learning.
According to Odutola, the traineeship has been a significant step toward a long-term academic and research-oriented career. Building on the experience gained through the HEP-TED project, he plans to pursue a PhD and research opportunities within international research consortia, with a particular interest in diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in education.
“I’m particularly interested in how inclusive pedagogies and curricula can be developed and adapted to support diverse learners,” he explains. “For my doctoral research, I aim to develop a context-responsive framework for integrating DEI into curriculum design and pedagogical practice, and to generate evidence on how this framework can be effectively implemented in diverse educational settings.”
For Arif, the traineeship strengthened her interest in higher education research and in how universities in the Global South can build internal quality practices based on their own contexts and experiences rather than adopting ready-made models. The experience in Kigali showed how partnership-based research can support institutions in developing tools that are locally grounded and meaningful for their own teaching and learning realities. Building on this experience, she hopes to pursue doctoral research on internal quality assurance, pedagogical development, and context-responsive approaches to institutional improvement in higher education.
“It was really impressive to see how the partnership created space for colleagues at URCE to reflect on and refine tools that fit their own context,” she says. “It made me more interested in research on how universities can develop internal quality processes that are shaped by local realities rather than copied from elsewhere.”
Both Arif and Odubanjo hope to build on their experiences in Kigali, continuing to explore context-sensitive, partnership-based approaches that support meaningful teaching and learning in higher education.