Blended learning approaches for high-quality and inclusive primary and secondary education 2021/C 504/03 - Main contents

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

C 504/21

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected and put unprecedented pressure on education and training systems worldwide and across the Union. The societal restrictions have brought major changes to teaching and learning as well as to communication and collaboration within education and training communities (1). They have had an impact on learners, their families, teachers, trainers, and institution leaders, as well as on community professionals who support education, such as social workers, psychologists, other counselling specialists, healthcare professionals and cultural educators. Member States were able to rapidly mobilise solutions and support for distance learning, making use of digital technologies in many instances. Useful lessons have been learned about new possibilities for education and training, including the significant increase in teachers’ digital skills and competences and closer links between schools and the wider community. However, many Member States have experienced shortcomings in the system, with a widespread lack of readiness and resources for the shift to a different approach to teaching and learning, which highlighted and aggravated existing inequalities, gaps and needs (2). Education and training systems need to address these and also to improve their resilience so as to better cope with and adapt to changing circumstances in the future.

The Council conclusions on countering the COVID-19 crisis in education and training invite Member States to ‘resume face-to-face learning and teaching activities’, and in addition to provide ‘possibilities for distance, digital and blended learning’, while paying ‘additional attention to ensuring equal opportunities’. The Council conclusions on digital education in Europe’s knowledge societies (3) further invite the Commission to ‘follow up, in close cooperation with Member States and based on evidence’, the aforementioned conclusions, ‘aiming at a shared understanding at Union level of the approaches for effective, inclusive and engaging remote learning processes’.

The Digital Education Action Plan 2021-2027 outlines the European Commission’s vision for high-quality, inclusive and accessible digital education in Europe. It is a call to action for stronger cooperation at European level to learn from the COVID-19 pandemic and make education and training systems fit for the digital age. It highlights the potential of technology to facilitate more accessible, flexible, personalised and learner-centred learning. It seeks to address inequities in education and training when digital skills and competences, access to appropriate tools, and reliable online connectivity are lacking. It stresses the need for strengthening digital capacity in education and training systems.

Fostering the development of competences is one of the aims of a European Education Area that would be able ‘to harness the full potential of education and culture as drivers for jobs, social fairness, active citizenship as well as a means to experience European identity in all its diversity’ (4). The Council Resolution on a strategic framework for European cooperation in education and training towards the European Education Area and beyond (2021-2030) (5) sets, as the main goal of European cooperation in education and training, support for further development of education and training systems in Member States which are aimed at ensuring the...