Virtual mobility to enhance intercultural competencies for a more sustainable future

Abstract

The UN locates education at the heart of the process to achieve a more sustainable future and deliver the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (UN-SDGs) by 2030. Within this context, this paper outlines the experience of designing and delivering an international virtual mobility workshop which brought together university students from the UK and Ghana. It offers a critical evaluation of the extent to which the workshop’s objectives were achieved, through comparison of pre- and post-workshop survey results, with a particular emphasis on changing levels of understanding of the UN-SDGs and the development of key intercultural competencies. The discussion highlights positive trajectories of change in student learning, and the challenges of delivering workshops of this nature. It is concluded that such challenges can be embraced as learning opportunities and that the associated discomfort and uncertainty is important to facilitate impactful learning experiences.