The Future of Development Education: Designing Transformational Learning Ecosystems in an Age of Polycrisis

Abstract: Development education (DE) is operating within a period of intersecting global crises characterised by widening inequality, ecological breakdown, democratic erosion and rapid digital transformation.  Recent development education debate describes this condition as a polycrisis and, more fundamentally, a meta crisis in which attention is directed towards the systemic relationships and root causes connecting these crises (Dolan, 2025; McCloskey, 2026).  While digitisation and artificial intelligence are increasingly shaping educational practice, this article argues that the central question for DE is not technological efficacy but whether new pedagogical environments can sustain its radical and transformative purpose.  Drawing upon critical traditions within DE (Andreotti, 2006, 2011; Bourn, 2015; Bryan and Bracken, 2011), and rooted in Freirean praxis (Freire, 1970), the article proposes a framework of transformational learning ecosystems that re-centres social justice, structural critique and collective agency in both physical and digital spaces.

Rather than treating digital innovation as inherently progressive, the article situates technological change within broader political economies of knowledge, power and inequality.  It examines how DE practice can resist depoliticisation by embedding participatory inquiry, South-North and South-South dialogue, and civic engagement within hybrid learning networks.  Drawing on reflective engagement with Ugandan Initial Teacher Education (ITE), Ugandan policy and recent scholarship on teacher education, curriculum localisation and technology-mediated learning, the article considers how ecosystemic approaches can move beyond awareness-raising towards sustained civic agency.  The article concludes that the future of DE lies not in technical adaptation to digital tools, but in its capacity to shape educational environments towards emancipatory ends.  In an age of polycrisis and meta crisis, DE must reclaim its role as a site of critical dialogue and democratic imagination, ensuring that emerging technologies remain accountable to justice rather than efficiency alone.

Key words: Development Education; Critical Pedagogy; Decoloniality; Democratic Civic Agency; Digital Transformation.

Introduction: Reclaiming the transformative core of digital education in a digital age

Development education has historically been understood as more than a curriculum theme or awareness-raising exercise.  Emerging from traditions of critical pedagogy, international solidarity and social justice, it has sought to cultivate forms of critical consciousness capable of interrogating structural injustice and nurturing democratic participation (Freire, 1970; Bourn, 2015).  Its distinctive contribution has been normative as much as pedagogical: an insistence that education should engage with global inequality, power relations and ethical responsibility in ways that move beyond information transmission towards transformative engagement.

In the current moment, rapid digitalisation and the expanding presence of artificial intelligence (AI) systems in education have generated new debates about teaching, learning and institutional practice.  These developments arise within a wider condition increasingly described in development education as a polycrisis, in which ecological, political, social and economic crises intersect, while the related idea of a meta crisis directs attention to the deeper systemic relationships that generate and reproduce them (Dolan, 2025; McCloskey, 2026; Pollock and Bell, 2025).  This framing matters for DE because it shifts attention from isolated global issues towards the interdependence, power relations and root causes connecting them.  It also raises important questions about digitalisation: how should a field committed to justice and critical literacy respond to data-driven platforms, algorithmic mediation and digitally networked learning environments? There is a risk that these questions become framed primarily in technical terms, focusing on tools, efficiency or innovation, rather than on DE's deeper ethical and political commitments (O’Toole, 2024).

The discussion is situated within Ugandan initial teacher education (ITE).  Uganda offers a particularly significant setting because teacher education is being reshaped through the National Teacher Policy, the Harmonized Framework for Initial Teacher Training, quality assurance reforms and a national Education Digital Agenda, while curriculum reforms increasingly emphasise competence, learner-centred pedagogy and relevance to social realities (Ministry of Education and Sports, 2016, 2019b, 2021).  Recent Ugandan scholarship also points to continuing questions around teacher educators’ readiness for curriculum reform, institutional support during school practice, curriculum decolonisation and the pedagogical meaning of technology-mediated learning (Aheisibwe and Barigye, 2025; Nampijja, 2024; Natukunda et al., 2026).  Consequently, Uganda provides more than an illustrative backdrop; it offers an opportunity to reflect on how the aspirations of DE are interpreted, negotiated and enacted within a postcolonial African education system.

This article argues that the challenge posed by digital transformation is not principally technological but normative.  The task is not to determine whether digital pedagogies are effective in instrumental terms, but to consider how DE can retain and indeed deepen its transformative core within digitally mediated contexts.  Reclaiming that core requires returning to foundational concerns: whose knowledge is legitimised, how power circulates through educational structures, how crises are connected rather than treated as isolated issues, and how learners are positioned in relation to democratic life.

The analysis is framed as practice-informed reflective scholarship rather than as an empirical study.  Drawing upon DE literature alongside sustained professional engagement within Ugandan higher education, particularly teacher education and digital pedagogy, the discussion reflects on how global debates about digitisation, crisis and transformation intersect with institutional realities in a global South context.  References to Ugandan practice are supplemented, where appropriate, by Ugandan research and policy documents; they are not presented as representative findings or sector-wide evidence.  This positional grounding seeks to resist abstract universalism and to foreground the perspective of a scholar-practitioner working within postcolonial educational conditions.

DE scholarship has consistently emphasised critical literacy, ethical reflexivity, global interdependence and attention to structural injustice (Andreotti, 2006, 2011; Bourn, 2015; Bryan and Bracken, 2011).  Recent debates in Policy and Practice further reinforce the need for DE to retain its critical edge in an era of polycrisis, educational silencing and intensifying pressure to depoliticise education (Dolan, 2025; McCloskey, 2026; O’Toole, 2024; Wheatley, 2024).  At the same time, decolonial analyses have urged the field to interrogate its own epistemic assumptions and to remain attentive to asymmetries between global North and global South contexts (Andreotti, 2011; Mignolo, 2011).  These concerns are particularly relevant to Uganda, where recent scholarship calls for greater attention to Indigenous knowledge, curriculum localisation and decolonial approaches to education (Asiimwe, Natamba and Mukasa, 2025; Nampijja, 2024). Digital infrastructures, from online platforms to data-intensive systems, intersect with these concerns in complex ways.  They may expand opportunities for dialogue and collaboration, yet they may also reproduce hierarchies of voice, commodify knowledge and depoliticise structural critique (Couldry and Mejias, 2019; Natukunda et al., 2026).

Rather than approaching digital change as either threat or panacea, this article proposes that it offers an opportunity to clarify DE’s purpose.  In response, three interrelated strategic shifts are advanced.  First, the article calls for a movement from content transmission towards participatory knowledge co-creation, reaffirming DE’s dialogical and epistemically just orientation.  Second, it argues for a shift from standalone interventions towards hybrid transformational learning ecosystems that embed DE structurally within institutions and communities.  Third, it proposes a transition from awareness-raising towards democratic civic agency, reconnecting critical reflection with sustained participation in public life.  These shifts are not presented as definitive models or empirical generalisations.  They are offered as reflective provocations grounded in DE theory and informed by professional experience and Ugandan research and policy contexts.  Together, they seek to reclaim DE’s transformative horizon at a time when technological discourse can narrow educational debate to questions of efficiency, innovation and managerial adaptation.

Positionality and approach: practice-informed reflective scholarship

This article is not an empirical study reporting findings from a defined dataset.  Rather, it is a practice-informed, reflective intervention grounded in development education scholarship and shaped by my professional experience as a lecturer in educational technology and teacher education in Uganda.  The analysis draws upon sustained engagement with curriculum reform, digital transformation initiatives and civic-oriented pedagogies within Ugandan higher education, alongside published Ugandan studies and policy documents.  Reflective scholarship has a strong affinity with critical pedagogy because Freire (1970) conceptualised praxis as the dialectical relationship between reflection and action.  In this sense, theorising from practice can contribute to knowledge production when it remains explicit about its positionality and does not claim the evidential status of a formal empirical study.  The article therefore brings practitioner reflection into dialogue with development education scholarship and with Ugandan evidence on teacher education, curriculum reform and digital learning (Bourn, 2015; Andreotti, 2011; Aheisibwe and Barigye, 2025; Natukunda et al., 2026).

The Ugandan references in this article therefore function both illustratively and analytically.  They do not claim statistical generalisability; instead, they situate the argument within documented educational realities and policy directions in the global South.  The use of Ugandan research is particularly important because it enables the article to examine epistemic hierarchy from a context that has historically been positioned as a recipient of externally generated development knowledge.  The strategic shifts proposed here emerge from the reflective intersection between DE theory, professional experience and this contextual literature.  They are offered not as definitive prescriptions, but as provocations for dialogue within the DE community about how its radical commitments can be sustained and deepened in a digitally mediated world.

Conceptual foundations: critical traditions, decolonial perspectives and democratic agency

Reclaiming the transformative core of DE in a digital age requires revisiting the intellectual traditions that have shaped the field while asking what these traditions mean in concrete educational contexts.  DE has never been solely about transmitting information on global poverty or international development; rather, it has been grounded in critical pedagogical traditions that link knowledge, power and social transformation (Bourn, 2015).  At its strongest, it has positioned education as a site of ethical inquiry and democratic possibility.  The contemporary meta crisis adds urgency to this tradition because the connected nature of current crises requires learners to examine systems, relationships and root causes rather than treating each crisis as a separate educational topic (McCloskey, 2026).

Critical pedagogy and transformative learning

The influence of Paulo Freire on DE is foundational.  Freire’s (1970) critique of the ‘banking model’ of education challenged hierarchical conceptions of teaching in which learners are passive recipients of knowledge.  Instead, he advanced a dialogical model centred on conscientização, the development of critical consciousness through reflection and action.  Within DE, this orientation informed pedagogies that encourage learners to interrogate structural inequality rather than merely acquire descriptive knowledge about global issues.

Bourn (2008, 2015) argues that DE should be understood as a pedagogy for global social justice, concerned not only with awareness but with fostering critical understanding of interdependence and power.  Recent Policy and Practice contributions continue to emphasise the need for transformative, critical and hopeful approaches to global citizenship education in the face of polycrisis and institutional pressures that can weaken critical engagement (Dolan, 2025; O'Toole, 2024).  Similarly, Bryan and Bracken (2011) emphasise the importance of engaging learners in questioning dominant narratives of development, charity and progress.  These traditions frame DE as an inherently political and ethical endeavour, though not partisan in a narrow sense. In the context of accelerating digital transformation, revisiting these foundations becomes particularly important.  If education is increasingly mediated by algorithmic systems, data infrastructures and global platforms, the Freirean insistence on dialogue and critical agency acquires renewed relevance.  The question is not whether technology can deliver content efficiently, but whether it enables or constrains critical participation.

Decolonial perspectives and epistemic justice

Alongside critical pedagogy, decolonial scholarship has significantly influenced contemporary DE.  Andreotti (2006, 2011) distinguishes between ‘soft’ and ‘critical’ global citizenship education, cautioning against approaches that emphasise empathy and charitable action while leaving structural hierarchies intact.  Recent work in Policy and Practice similarly warns that global citizenship education can reproduce silences and dominant assumptions when critical questions of power and positionality are not addressed (Gamal, Hoult and Taylor, 2024; Stein, 2024).  From this perspective, DE must remain attentive to how colonial legacies shape knowledge production, representation and global discourse.  Mignolo (2011) advances the concept of epistemic disobedience, urging recognition of plural epistemologies beyond Western modernity.  Within DE, this entails interrogating whose knowledge is legitimised, whose experiences are centred and how global problems are framed.  Decolonial perspectives therefore push the field beyond inclusion towards a structural critique of epistemic power.

These concerns intersect with digital transformation in complex ways.  Global digital infrastructures are largely designed and governed within powerful economic centres, shaping flows of information and data.  Recent discussion of technology-mediated learning in Ugandan universities similarly cautions that policy support for digitalisation does not automatically guarantee pedagogically meaningful or equitable learning (Natukunda et al., 2026).  A decolonial lens therefore invites DE to examine not only what is taught through digital media, but how digital systems themselves participate in global power relations and whose knowledge becomes more visible or less visible through them.

Democratic agency and civic participation

A third conceptual strand within DE emphasises democratic agency.  Osler and Starkey (2005, 2010) argue that education for global citizenship must prepare learners for meaningful participation in democratic life.  This includes fostering political literacy, ethical reasoning, and the capacity to engage in informed, respectful deliberation with people who hold diverse and sometimes competing perspectives.  DE, in this view, contributes to democracy not merely by informing learners about global challenges, but by cultivating dispositions and competencies for engagement.  Recent work on global citizenship education likewise stresses the importance of agency, action and critical engagement rather than passive awareness (Dolan, 2025; O'Toole, 2024).  Mannion et al. (2011) further caution against reductive interpretations of global citizenship that detach it from political structures and public participation.  If DE is to remain transformative, it must link critical awareness to opportunities for civic engagement.

These ideas have particular relevance to Ugandan ITE, where teachers are prepared not only as classroom practitioners but as professionals working within schools and communities. Uganda’s teacher education policy framework explicitly places teacher education within wider responsibilities for professionalisation, quality, ethical practice and responsiveness to the education system (Ministry of Education and Sports, 2019a).  The Ministry’s teacher education structures also identify participation in the social, cultural and economic development of society as part of the intended orientation of teacher preparation (Ministry of Education and Sports, n.d.). Research on community-oriented teacher education and school practice in Uganda suggests that relationships among teacher educators, student teachers, schools and communities can provide important spaces for contextual learning and professional agency (Walimbwa et al., 2022; Kitooke and Mahon, 2024; Aheisibwe and Barigye, 2025).  The issue, therefore, is not simply whether democratic agency should be valued, but how ITE can create sustained opportunities for future teachers to practise it.

Integrating the traditions

Taken together, critical pedagogy, decolonial theory and democratic education form a coherent conceptual foundation for rethinking DE in a digital age.  Critical pedagogy foregrounds dialogue and agency; decolonial perspectives interrogate epistemic hierarchy; democratic theory emphasises civic participation and public deliberation.  Recent DE scholarship adds a further imperative: the ability to address interconnected crises through systems thinking, critical hope and collective agency (Dolan, 2025; McCloskey, 2026).  None of these traditions centres technology as a primary concern.  Instead, they provide normative criteria against which technological developments can be assessed.  The three strategic shifts proposed in the following sections are therefore not technological reforms, but pedagogical and structural reorientations derived from these critical traditions and interpreted through Ugandan ITE, policy and practice.

Strategic shift 1: from content transmission to participatory knowledge co-creation

If DE is grounded in critical pedagogy, democratic agency and epistemic justice, then its pedagogical forms must reflect those commitments.  A persistent tension in contemporary practice, including in teacher education, lies in the reliance on transmission-oriented approaches: expert-led workshops, curated global issue modules and externally produced teaching resources that position learners primarily as recipients of knowledge.  Such approaches may raise awareness, but they sit uneasily alongside DE’s emancipatory aspirations.  Freire (1970) critiqued the ‘banking model’ of education, in which knowledge is deposited into passive learners.  Recent Ugandan work on competence-based education similarly describes a shift away from teacher-centred transmission towards learner-centred, active and applied learning, while also identifying implementation gaps (Kasujja, Muzaale and Kasekende, 2025; Arinaitwe et al., 2026).

The first strategic shift, therefore, involves moving from content transmission toward participatory knowledge co-creation.  This shift is not presented here as a universal reform prescription, but as a normative direction emerging from DE’s foundational commitments and from reflective engagement with practice.

Co-creation as democratic practice

Participatory knowledge production aligns directly with DE’s aim of cultivating democratic subjectivity (Osler and Starkey, 2010).  When learners investigate issues affecting their own communities, they move from abstract awareness to situated inquiry.  In Uganda, teacher education, school practice and community-oriented programme innovations have created opportunities for student teachers and practicing teachers to engage local problems through learning-by-doing and partnerships with communities (Walimbwa et al., 2022; Kitooke and Mahon, 2024).  My own professional engagement with teacher education similarly suggests that community-linked inquiry can reposition learners as contributors to knowledge rather than consumers of pre-defined content.  These reflections are illustrative rather than representative data, but they point to the value of treating local communities as co-producers of educational knowledge.

These experiences are not offered as representative data across the sector, but as reflective illustrations that are now complemented by Ugandan research. Walimbwa et al (2022), for example, found that programme innovations involving local stakeholders could strengthen contextually relevant competencies and learning-by-doing among in-service teachers, while Kitooke and Mahon’s (2024) broader review identifies community-oriented teacher education as a means of developing knowledge of local issues, cultivating social justice and preparing teachers for particular school and community contexts. Such scholarship strengthens the case for participatory co-creation as a practical extension of DE’s emphasis on situated learning and collective problem-solving.

Epistemic justice and South–South dialogue

Participatory co-creation also responds to decolonial critiques of DE.  If dominant development narratives have historically marginalised non-Western epistemologies, then transformative practice must create space for epistemic plurality (Mignolo, 2011).  Ugandan scholarship has increasingly taken this question seriously.  Nampijja (2024) argues for curriculum transformation that recognises local experiences, values and languages, while Asiimwe, Natamba and Mukasa (2025) examine the integration of Indigenous knowledge into Uganda’s curriculum as a strategy for decolonisation and cultural reclamation.  Kiiza et al. (2024) similarly call for teacher education curricula to be rethought around Ugandan Indigenous contents and learning experiences.  These studies suggest that decolonisation in teacher education is not merely a conceptual aspiration; it concerns the knowledge, examples, languages and experiences through which future teachers are prepared.

Digital platforms may extend opportunities for dialogue across contexts, but their transformative potential depends on pedagogical framing and epistemic purpose.  In Uganda, the Education Digital Agenda seeks to improve digital transformation while supporting ICT integration, research and innovation, human resource capacity and continuity of education during disruption (Ministry of Education and Sports, 2021).  Recent analysis of technology-mediated learning in Ugandan universities nevertheless cautions against equating digital access with pedagogically meaningful learning (Natukunda et al., 2026). The relevant question for DE is therefore not whether digital platforms are available, but whether their use supports reciprocal dialogue, local knowledge production and critical interrogation of power.

From awareness to situated structural analysis

Transmission-based approaches often present development challenges as universal problems requiring technical solutions.  Participatory co-creation, by contrast, foregrounds situated structural analysis.  Learners are invited to explore how global processes intersect with local realities and how climate change affects specific communities, how trade regimes shape local markets, or how digital platform economies influence youth livelihoods or how digital platform economies influence educational and employment opportunities.  Bryan and Bracken (2011) argue that global citizenship education becomes transformative when learners confront their own positionality within systems of power.  In Ugandan ITE, community-oriented and school-based inquiry offers a practical route for connecting such global analysis to local educational realities (Walimbwa et al., 2022; Kitooke and Mahon, 2024).

These reflections are illustrative rather than evidential claims about the entire sector.  They nevertheless indicate why participatory approaches can be valuable for DE: they create opportunities for learners to encounter complexity, question assumptions and relate global systems to lived experience.  Their transformative potential remains dependent on context, facilitation and institutional support.

The role of the educator

This shift reconfigures the role of the educator.  Within a transmission model, the educator functions as primary knowledge authority.  Within a co-creative model, the educator becomes facilitator, dialogical partner and co-learner engaged in shared inquiry, aligning with Freire’s (1970) concept of co-intentional education.  Ugandan policy and research point towards increasing expectations for teacher educators to support competence-based, learner-centred and professionally relevant preparation (Ministry of Education and Sports, 2019a; Kasujja, Muzaale and Kasekende, 2025).  Research on teacher educators’ readiness for curriculum change, however, suggests that institutional capacity and the involvement of teacher education institutions in reform processes remain important issues (Atibuni and Olema, 2024).  Participatory co-creation therefore requires not only changes in classroom practice but institutional support for teacher educators themselves.

Digital tools as enablers, not drivers

Within this strategic shift, digital technologies occupy a secondary yet potentially enabling role. Collaborative platforms, digital storytelling and open resources can support shared authorship and dialogue, but technology alone does not guarantee co-creation.  Ugandan evidence on technology-mediated learning has repeatedly highlighted the importance of contextual conditions, capacity and pedagogical purpose (Tusiime, Johannesen and Guðmundsdóttir, 2019; Natukunda et al., 2026).  The evaluative question for DE is therefore not how technologically advanced a learning environment appears, but whether it advances democratic participation, epistemic justice and locally grounded inquiry.

Strategic shift 2: from standalone interventions to hybrid transformational learning ecosystems

If participatory co-creation reshapes pedagogical relationships within classrooms, a second shift concerns the broader institutional architectures within which DE is situated.  Development education cannot realise sustained transformation if it remains dependent on isolated events, short-term projects or individual champions.  The move towards an ecosystem therefore asks how teacher education institutions can connect curriculum, school practice, community partnerships, civic engagement and digital spaces into sustained relationships.  Reflection on Ugandan ITE, together with recent research on school practice and community-oriented teacher education, suggests that institutional support and collaboration are central to making such relationships meaningful (Aheisibwe and Barigye, 2025; Kitooke and Mahon, 2024).

Development education beyond the event

Bourn (2015) argues that DE requires continuity if it is to influence learners’ dispositions and civic identities.  Recent articles published in Policy and Practice similarly warns against the marginalisation or dilution of critical global education when it is absorbed into institutional structures without sustained attention to its purpose (O'Toole, 2024).  Within Ugandan teacher education, this raises a practical question: how can development-oriented learning become part of the normal work of ITE rather than remaining an occasional workshop or externally funded activity?  Uganda’s National Teacher Policy and the Harmonized Framework for Initial Teacher Training provide an institutional basis for professional, coherent teacher preparation, while the Ministry’s quality assurance framework emphasises standards and continuous improvement (Ministry of Education and Sports, 2016, 2019a).  These policy commitments provide entry points for embedding DE more systematically.

An ecosystem approach therefore conceptualises DE as a relational network linking teacher education institutions, schools, communities, civil society organisations, policy actors and, where appropriate, digital spaces.  In Ugandan practice, community-oriented teacher education and school practice already offer partial forms of such relationality.  Walimbwa et al. (2022) describe programme innovations that brought local stakeholders into teacher education, while Aheisibwe and Barigye (2025) highlight the importance of institutional support, supervision and collaboration between training institutions and practicum schools. The proposal here is to connect such relationships more explicitly to the transformative aims of DE rather than treating them as separate administrative functions.

Relationality and institutional coherence

The ecosystem metaphor foregrounds relationality.  DE has long emphasised global interdependence; extending this principle institutionally suggests that educational transformation requires sustained partnerships rather than isolated activity.  The Ugandan evidence is instructive: community-oriented teacher education can connect local people, places and institutions to teacher learning (Walimbwa et al., 2022; Kitooke and Mahon, 2024), while research on school practice points to the importance of institutional support and constructive supervision (Aheisibwe and Barigye, 2025).  Such findings reinforce the argument that ecosystemic learning requires organisational structures that support continuity in inquiry, feedback and mutual learning.

Digital communication tools can facilitate ongoing dialogue within these partnerships, particularly where geographic distance presents logistical constraints.  Uganda’s Education Digital Agenda 2021-2025 explicitly sought to integrate ICT into teaching, learning, assessment and management, while promoting research, innovation and continuity of education during disruption (Ministry of Education and Sports, 2021).  Yet recent Ugandan scholarship cautions that digitalisation should not be reduced to access or infrastructure and should instead be judged by the quality and relevance of learning it supports (Natukunda et al., 2026).  The defining feature of an ecosystem is therefore not digital connectivity but shared normative purpose

Hybrid spaces: possibilities and constraints

Hybridisation, understood here as the deliberate integration of physical and digital learning spaces, offers possibilities for sustaining dialogue beyond immediate localities.  In Uganda, the move towards technology-mediated learning has expanded the potential for communication among universities, teacher educators, student teachers and schools, although uneven infrastructure and institutional capacity continue to shape participation (Tusiime, Johannesen and Guðmundsdóttir, 2019; Natukunda et al., 2026).  The implication for DE is that hybrid spaces need to be designed around equity and participation rather than assumed to be inherently inclusive.

From a decolonial perspective, hybridity also demands careful attention to agenda-setting, language and knowledge authority.  International digital collaborations can reproduce unequal relations if knowledge, technology and decision-making remain concentrated in the global North (Andreotti, 2011; Couldry and Mejias, 2019).  Ugandan scholarship on curriculum decolonisation reinforces the importance of local experiences, values, languages and Indigenous knowledge in educational design (Nampijja, 2024; Asiimwe, Natamba and Mukasa, 2025).  Hybrid DE ecosystems should therefore make reciprocal South-South and South-North learning possible without allowing external agendas to displace locally grounded knowledge.

Institutional engagement and policy dialogue

Moving beyond standalone interventions also implies closer connection between DE and public deliberation.  Osler and Starkey (2010) argue that democratic education should create pathways for meaningful participation in civic processes.  Uganda’s teacher education policy framework links teacher preparation to wider professional, ethical and societal responsibilities (Ministry of Education and Sports, 2019a), while the Ministry’s teacher education structures explicitly recognise participation in social, cultural and economic development as part of the intended orientation of teacher preparation (Ministry of Education and Sports, n.d.).  For DE, these commitments create opportunities to connect student teachers’ inquiry with school and community dialogue, local education structures and public problem-solving.

Structural pressures and sustainability

An ecosystemic orientation also requires confronting structural pressures shaping contemporary education.  Funding cycles, performance metrics and market-oriented reforms can encourage short-term outputs over sustained relational work.  Ugandan research on competence-based reforms and teacher education points to challenges involving resources, institutional readiness, ICT integration and the coordination of reform across teacher education institutions (Aheisibwe and Barigye, 2025; Atibuni and Olema, 2024).  The proposal for ecosystemic transformation is therefore aspirational as well as analytical: it identifies a direction aligned with DE’s normative commitments while recognising that institutional change is gradual, contested and dependent on policy implementation.

From pedagogical innovation to structural reorientation

Participatory co-creation as presented in Shift 1 reorients the micro-level dynamics of teaching and learning.  The move toward hybrid transformational ecosystems extends this reorientation to institutional and relational levels.  Rather than treating DE as an occasional thematic supplement, this shift positions it as an organising orientation shaping partnerships, curricula and engagement strategies.  Digital technologies intersect with this transformation as enabling infrastructures rather than primary drivers.  They may support continuity, collaboration and transnational dialogue, but the central question remains normative: do institutional arrangements sustain democratic participation and epistemic plurality over time?  In this sense, ecosystemic thinking represents not a technological turn, but a structural deepening of DE’s transformative ambitions.

Strategic shift 3: from awareness-raising to democratic civic agency

If participatory co-creation reshapes pedagogical relationships and ecosystemic embedding strengthens institutional continuity, a third shift concerns purpose.  DE has long prioritised awareness of global injustice.  Yet reflective engagement with practice and recent DE scholarship suggest that awareness alone is insufficient for sustained democratic participation (Dolan, 2025; O'Toole, 2024).  Consistent with Freire’s (1970) concept of conscientização, critical consciousness becomes transformative when linked to praxis: reflection and action upon the world.  In ITE, this means preparing teachers not only to explain global challenges but to facilitate dialogue, support inclusive participation and connect learning to the civic life of schools and communities.

Beyond empathy: toward political literacy

Andreotti (2006; 2011) cautions against forms of global citizenship education that emphasise empathy without interrogating structural power.  In reflecting on teacher education in Uganda, classroom discussions on inequality, climate change or educational disadvantage can begin at the level of moral concern, but they can also become more analytically productive when learners are invited to examine governance structures, policy processes, institutional responsibilities and economic relations.  This observation is offered as professional reflection rather than evidence of a generalised effect.  It nevertheless points to the importance of political literacy: understanding how institutions function, how decisions are made and where citizens can intervene.

Osler and Starkey (2010) argue that democratic education should equip learners with capacities for meaningful participation.  In Uganda’s decentralised governance system, schools and communities interact with local government structures that can provide spaces for dialogue on education, health, environment and community development.  Teacher education can prepare future teachers to understand and navigate such spaces rather than treating civic engagement as separate from professional practice.  Uganda’s National Teacher Policy, with its emphasis on professionalisation, ethical practice and wider social responsibility, provides a policy foundation for considering this broader role (Ministry of Education and Sports, 2019a).

Scaffolding agency within ecosystems

The movement from awareness to agency does not occur automatically.  It depends on the relational and institutional infrastructures described in the previous section.  Where DE remains episodic, opportunities for sustained engagement are limited.  Where partnerships endure, cycles of inquiry, feedback and reflection become possible.   Ugandan work on school practice and community-oriented teacher education indicates the value of institutional support, supervision, local partnerships and authentic learning experiences (Walimbwa et al., 2022; Aheisibwe and Barigye, 2025; Kitooke and Mahon, 2024).  These studies strengthen the argument that civic agency must be intentionally supported rather than assumed as a natural by-product of awareness.

Contestation and democratic risk

DE oriented toward civic agency must also acknowledge that democratic participation involves contestation.  Dialogue around development priorities like land use, environmental protection, economic reform, gender equity among others, often reveals divergent perspectives.  In plural contexts such as Uganda’s, these differences may reflect generational, political or socio-economic divides.  Freire (1970) emphasised dialogue as an ethical encounter grounded in mutual recognition rather than imposed consensus.  For teacher educators, the challenge is therefore to create spaces in which disagreement can be explored critically and respectfully.  Recent DE discussions about educational silence and the dilution of critical global citizenship education reinforce the importance of maintaining spaces for difficult knowledge and contested issues (Gamal, Hoult and Taylor, 2024; O’Toole, 2024).

From individual awareness to collective engagement

Awareness-oriented approaches often focus on individual attitudinal change.  Civic agency, by contrast, requires collective orientation.  Participatory co-creation (Shift 1) introduces collaborative inquiry at classroom level.  Ecosystemic partnerships (Shift 2) extend collaboration institutionally.  The culmination lies in enabling learners to see themselves as participants in broader publics rather than isolated moral actors.  Ugandan teacher education provides tangible entry points through school practice, community-oriented projects and engagement with local education challenges (Walimbwa et al., 2022; Aheisibwe and Barigye, 2025).  DE can intersect with such initiatives by providing critical frameworks for understanding power, inequality and global interdependence.

Ethical reflexivity and global solidarity

A shift toward civic agency must remain ethically reflexive.  Andreotti (2011) warns that well-intentioned action can reproduce paternalistic or hierarchical relations if not critically examined.  This concern is particularly relevant to North-South partnerships and to educational projects involving communities whose knowledge has historically been marginalised.  Ugandan scholarship on decolonised curriculum points towards the importance of local experiences, values, languages and Indigenous knowledge (Nampijja, 2024; Asiimwe, Natamba and Mukasa, 2025). Hybrid engagements connecting learners across borders may foster solidarity when grounded in reciprocity, but they require intentional attention to power, positionality and agenda-setting.

Reasserting purpose

The progression from co-creation to ecosystems to civic agency clarifies DE’s horizon.  The goal is not merely informed awareness, but participation in democratic processes oriented towards justice.  In Ugandan ITE, this means preparing teachers who can connect global issues to local educational realities, facilitate critical dialogue and work collaboratively with communities. Reflective engagement and the available research suggest both possibilities and constraints: competence-based reforms and community-oriented approaches create openings for participation, while questions of institutional capacity, resources, digital inequality and curriculum ownership remain significant (Aheisibwe and Barigye, 2025; Nampijja, 2024; Natukunda et al., 2026).  These reflections do not claim generalisability but reinforce a central normative insight: DE must sustain its commitment to linking critical understanding with democratic participation.

The application of the three strategic shifts to a Ugandan context

Applying the three shifts to Ugandan education and ITE requires moving from principle to institutional practice.  First, participatory knowledge co-creation can be strengthened by reorienting student-teacher inquiry, school practice and assessment towards locally identified problems and community knowledge.  This would build on existing community-oriented teacher education work, while making the connection to development education and critical social justice more explicit (Walimbwa et al., 2022; Kitooke and Mahon, 2024).

Second, teacher education institutions could be supported to function as learning ecosystems rather than separate providers.  The National Teacher Policy, the Harmonized Framework for Initial Teacher Training and the Quality Assurance Framework provide policy entry points for stronger links among teacher educators, student teachers, practicum schools, communities and professional bodies (Ministry of Education and Sports, 2016, 2019a). The Education Digital Agenda can complement this by supporting hybrid collaboration, while maintaining attention to equity, local relevance and meaningful pedagogy (Ministry of Education and Sports, 2021; Natukunda et al., 2026).

Third, democratic civic agency can be made more explicit within ITE through structured opportunities for student teachers to investigate public issues, engage community and local-government actors, deliberate across difference and reflect on power and positionality. Decolonisation should accompany these shifts by giving greater curricular space to Ugandan histories, languages, Indigenous knowledge and locally generated educational knowledge (Nampijja, 2024; Asiimwe, Natamba and Mukasa, 2025).  The substantive next step is therefore not a new digital programme but a coordinated institutional commitment to make critical, participatory and locally grounded teacher education the connective tissue of development education.

Conclusion: reclaiming the transformative horizon of DE

This article has argued that the future of DE does not lie in technological adoption for its own sake, but in renewing its critical, democratic and emancipatory commitments within a digitally mediated world shaped by intersecting crises.  Recent DE debate on the polycrisis and meta crisis reinforces the need to examine systemic relationships, root causes and possibilities for collective action rather than treating crises as isolated topics (Dolan, 2025; McCloskey, 2026).  The three strategic shifts outlined here provide a framework for that renewal.  First, moving from content transmission to participatory knowledge co-creation reclaims DE’s Freirean foundation and gives practical expression to epistemic justice.  Second, moving from standalone interventions to hybrid transformational learning ecosystems extends this commitment institutionally through sustained relationships among teacher education institutions, schools, communities and civic actors.  Third, moving from awareness-raising to democratic civic agency reconnects critical reflection with meaningful participation in public life.

Taken together, these shifts reposition DE as a structural orientation rather than a thematic add-on.  Their significance becomes clearer when considered through Ugandan ITE.  Uganda’s teacher education policy and curriculum reforms provide institutional openings for professional, competence-based and contextually relevant teacher preparation, while research on community-oriented teacher education, school practice, curriculum decolonisation and digital learning illustrates both opportunities and constraints (Ministry of Education and Sports, 2016, 2019a, 2021; Walimbwa et al., 2022; Kitooke and Mahon, 2024; Asiimwe, Natamba and Mukasa, 2025; Aheisibwe and Barigye, 2025; Natukunda et al., 2026).  Uganda is not presented as a model to be replicated elsewhere.  Rather, it offers a global South context from which the international DE community can consider how critical pedagogy, decolonisation and digital transformation are negotiated together in practice.

The article has been presented as practice-informed reflective scholarship rather than as an empirical evaluation of Ugandan ITE.  This distinction is important to the epistemic argument of the article: Uganda should not be invoked rhetorically while its educational realities remain undocumented, but neither should reflective experience be presented as sector-wide evidence.  The substantive next step is therefore to connect existing policy, research and professional practice more deliberately, so that teacher education institutions can use participatory pedagogy, institutional partnerships and civic engagement to deepen the transformative purposes of DE.

The risk in the present moment is not technological change itself, but depoliticisation: the subtle drift towards framing global challenges as technical problems requiring managerial solutions.  DE must resist this drift.  Its distinctive contribution lies in cultivating critical consciousness, ethical reflexivity, epistemic plurality and collective agency.  Digital tools may support these aims, but they cannot substitute for them.  Ultimately, the future of DE depends on its capacity to remain intellectually rigorous and politically courageous while learning from diverse contexts, including those of the global South.  In doing so, it sustains the transformative horizon that has animated the field from its inception: the possibility that education can contribute meaningfully to more just, equitable and solidaristic futures.

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Michael Walimbwa is a lecturer of Educational Technology at Makerere University in Uganda and holds a PhD in Educational Technology.  He teaches and supervises postgraduate research in curriculum studies, digital pedagogy, assessment innovation, and teacher education at Makerere University.  His scholarship focuses on the transformative potential of technology in resource-constrained higher education systems, with particular attention to equity, global justice, and the integration of generative artificial intelligence in teaching and learning.  He has published and presented on innovative assessment practices, employability skills in teacher education, and access to assistive technologies for learners with disabilities.  His work is grounded in critical pedagogy and is committed to advancing socially responsive and contextually relevant DE in the global South.  Email: walimbwamichael@gmail.com