21st Teach Skills

Project Title: Teacher training with specialization on life and information technology skills/21stTS

Coordinating University: University of Ioannina, Greece

Partner Organizations:

1. University of Ioannina, Greece
2. Klaipeda University (KU), Lithuania
3. Novel Group Sarl (Novel Group), Luxembourg
4. Symbiosis International (Deemed University) [SIU], India
5. BANASTHALI VIDYAPITH, India
6. Southwest university, China
7. Shenzhen Polytechnic, China
8. Royal University of Phnom Penh, Cambodia
9. University of Battabang, Cambodia

Introduction:

Ambitions for education are captured in Sustainable Development Goal 4 of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development which aims to “ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all”. In a globalized and multicultural economy and society, young people’s horizons are not broad enough to operate accordingly. Challenges, such as the rapid technological advancements and new patterns of work have created a number of demands on education, making the inculcation of 21st century skills a necessity. Those skills need to be integrated in the teacher educational programs in order for the teachers to be effective in the 21st century.

The educational curriculum seems to not successfully match with the 21st century skills requirements.

• In order to develop a student-centered learning environment, cover successfully the needs of a growing diverse population of children in China, India and Cambodia with a variety of multi-cultural, multi-linguistics and multi-ability needs and respond to the gap in skills set in the labour market and society, shortage of qualified teachers and poor level of student learning this proposal aims at transferring knowledge, best practices and experience on innovative and ICT-based teaching methodology on 21st skills acquisition from HEIs in Programme Countries to the HEIs of Partner Countries that will be benefitted directly from this project.
• Old and new teachers will become agents for embedding 21st century knowledge and skills in all subjects in accordance with national and state standards. Additionally, academics, tutors and lecturers will have the opportunity to receive a high-quality capacity building programme which aims to align technologies with content and pedagogy whereas it includes training on assessment tools for skills evaluation of the students.

OBJECTIVES OF THE PROJECT

• The principal activity will be to develop a new education programme in higher education institutions’ curricula for teachers and educators.
• Improve the quality of higher education and life-long learning by offering online learning system and transferring new teaching ICT-base methodologies to the Partner Countries as well as innovative assessment tools for evaluation of 21st century skills.
• Enhance the relevance of education for the labour market and society by making the acquisition of 21st skills the highest priority for pupils and thus contributing to the up skilling of school graduates who want to be incorporated in the labour market and will prepared to satisfy the ever- growing demands of a globalized market.
• Improve the level of competences and skills in the HEIs by developing new and innovative education courses for pre-service and in-service teachers and educators, which will modernise the curricula offered and will offer innovative MOOCs.
• Enhance the innovation capacities as well as the internationalisation of HEIs by promoting transnational cooperation and networking in the field of application and tool development and better exploitation of ICT potential, use of toolboxes for learning and extent use of virtual platforms for learning, as well as by developing common pedagogical practices in a globalized market.
• Promote voluntary convergence with EU developments of curriculum development in the field of education studies in higher education system through the sharing of best practices and know-how and the promotion of e- learning.
• Promote people-to-people contacts, intercultural awareness and understanding with the development of an open digital education platform which will launch a section for learning communities in the educational platform for academics and will help grow them into something influential in the field of Education. Exchange of best practices, tools and methodologies will help the development of personal contacts and the enriching of professional knowledge without the limits of borders or specific to a culture.
• Additionally, the Asian HEIs have assessed the need and challenges of educational reform in their countries and region and how the skills should meet the needs of the labour market