Eighteen Year-1 students from the Bachelor of Science (Honours) in Speech Pathology and Rehabilitation (BScSPR) and sixty-one Year-1 students from the Master of Science in Educational Speech-Language Pathology and Learning Disabilities (MScESLPLD) programme at The Education University of Hong Kong (EdUHK) participated in the Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) activities in September 2025. They were joined by students from four partner universities: Karolinska Institutet (Stockholm), Hanzehogeschool University of Applied Sciences (Groningen), Fontys University of Applied Sciences (Eindhoven), and Università degli Studi di Padova (Padua). This marked the ninth consecutive year that the Department of Special Education and Counselling (SEC) has participated in the COIL initiative, with an unprecedented total enrolment of 264 students this year.
Students were divided into 35 breakout groups, each comprising members from all five participating universities. Throughout the series of activities, students shared their diverse language and cultural backgrounds, fostering intercultural understanding and collaboration. The programme centred on Hofstede’s 6-Dimension Model of National Culture (https://geerthofstede.com/culture-geert-hofstede-gert-jan-hofstede/6d-model-of-national-culture/), encouraging students to discuss and practice how to respond appropriately to the unique combination of cultural variables across the full range of dimensions that clinicians, clients, and families bring to interactions.
This international and collaborative learning experience deepened students’ intercultural awareness and enriched their understanding of global professional practice in speech-language pathology.
SEC is the host department for both MScESLPLD and BScSPR, which is fully committed to internationalisation and providing non-local experiential activities for our students.
For more information about the programmes, please visit:
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