Redesigning the curriculum: Applying Problem Based Learning in a new Context

This article explores how translation of a pedagogical approach from a Danish University to a Ugandan university is negotiated by participants in a capacity building project. More specifically, it offers an empirical study of the planning process of transforming a traditional curriculum to a Problem Based Learning (PBL) curriculum and how the change is construed discursively in the new context. Focusing on data from two workshops in situ, we uncover predominant discourses and implicit attitudinal positions, and we discuss our findings in the light of the postcolonial setting in which the interaction unfolds. We conclude that although the participants seem amenable to introducing PBL in the curriculum, they express subtle hesitation about the feasibility of such a transition. This leads us to suggest that our partnership might have been influenced by ‘the postcolonial elephant in the room’. Our analyses are informed by Critical Discourse Analysis, auto ethnography and postcolonial theory.