Eurydice

In Spain, the closure of schools caused by the COVID-19 crisis resulted in a sudden need for digital technologies to ensure the continuation of learning, teaching and assessing in all educational levels. For several years now, the Education Departments of the Autonomous Communities have been implementing initiatives to advance towards the digital transformation of the education system. The pandemic has accelerated this process.

Global school shutdowns in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic led to the abrupt introduction of online education and virtual schooling, without teachers being prepared for it. However, teachers experimented the digital platforms and online tools to achieve the learning objectives. This new knowledge could be used and further developed in face-to-face teaching, as it can help to adopt differentiate learning processed and better support students’ learning needs.

2020 is the year of preparation for the introduction of compulsory pre-primary education into practice.  This measure aims to give the opportunity for every child to have the same “starting point” before the compulsory school attendance at primary school.  In paralell pre-primary education was significantly affected by COVID19 and kindergarten teachers had to adapt methodologies.

The new programme aims at supporting existing Folk Universities, reformulating their educational mission and establishing new institutions.

The higher education institutions in Denmark are slowly opening up and extraordinary measures have been taken to support both the current and future students. The purpose of the measures is to foster the enrolment of students in the Universities. The Danish Government, through the Minister of Children and Education and the Minister of Higher Education and Science, sent a letter to all upper secondary school graduates advising them on the steps to take when considering applying for higher education.

There are both immediate and long term measures foreseen.

The Finnish Government decided, on 30th of March, that restrictions on contact teaching at different levels of education would be valid until 13th of May.  However, this deadline was prolonged due to the pandemic situation and distance learning continues to be the national teaching methodology.  As it is foreseeable that the distance-learning format in VET (vocational education and training) to be continued after the summer, it became evident the necessity to reinforce the support for students with special needs.

As a result of an adjustment of federal legislation, compulsory education in Belgium will begin from the age of 5 years old – instead of 6 – as of the next school year 2020-2021.    With this measure, the federal government aims to ensure that all children have attended the kindergarten level for at least one year, to facilitate their adaptation to the primary education and making this transition as smooth as possible.   As a result, all children born in 2015 – hence turning 5 in 2020 and regardless of their actual birth month  – will be subject to compulsory schooling as of 1 September 202

As of 1 September 2019, new attainment targets have been introduced in the first stage of secondary education, simultaneous to the modernisation of secondary education. The same procedure will be followed for the development of learning outcomes in the second and third stage of secondary education. Learning outcomes to be developed for the second stage will be implemented on 1 September 2021 and those for the third stage on 1 September 2023.

Process

In December 2019, the Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs of German federal states (Länder) adopted recommendations on German as a language of education and on language-sensitive teaching at vocational schools.

The Flemish Ministry of Education and Ministry of Work defined the content of 23 additional dual learning courses. These include courses that lead to qualifications such as bread and pastry chef, welder or painter.