Page 8 - PR5_Toolkit_EN

during COVID-19, schools, universities, and adult education centres, had to rely mostly on personal
capabilities of the teachers and students resulting in a lack of equal opportunities for all involved.

Teachers with lack of skills found hard adjusting and dealing with the new situation and since then
they are adapting slowly to it. The same could be said for students with lack of skills in digital tools,
hard to follow and help during distance learning. Another key aspect was the lack of equipment for
both learners and teachers/educators that hampered their capabilities and tools to adapt and
change quickly.

The lack of funding and lack of quick and decisive answer by the central government pushed vet and
education centres in solving issue with own funding or participation to local and European

opportunities, with a lot of centres and schools participating in EU funded activities that boosted
teacher competences and secure little bit of funding for equipment and necessities.

Since COVID-19, most vet and adult education centres changed slightly and decided to focus more
on digital education and digital tools, especially for their teachers and educators, thus proving that
digital education has now taken a strong position in the learning environment and centres as well
as school, don’t want to be left behind in case of necessity.

1.2 PORTUGAL

The highly accelerated in recent years integration of digital education in Portugal has been a general
trend in Portugal with online and blended learning methodologies becoming a common approach
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to professional and life-long learning education. However, it proven to be particularly challenging in
regard to inclusivity of this approach. The recent pandemics highlighted significant lack of required
infrastructure for enabling general access to the digital format of education. It has highlighted a
significant issue: a lack of access to required for the digital transformation tools for both learners
and educators. Hence, the main challenge of change management extends beyond updating existing
materials and methodologies to suit the increasingly digital world or upskilling educators in digital
methodologies and ensuring basic digital skills. It often boils down to a simple lack of equipment,
necessitating resource-sharing among multiple users. Moreover, significant areas in Portugal face
limitations in access and/or quality of internet connectivity.

The lack of access to required digital tools on the side of the learners, but also often the educators
has been decreasing capacity of adult education sector to respond to realistic needs for access to
relevant adult education in Portugal. The remedy that proven to be often more time and cost
effective than acquiring public funds has been found in reaching out to the private sector. Many
educators and organisations have been working together with companies that are willing to upgrade
their equipment while donating the used (but still perfectly adequate for educational purposes) IT
devices to adult education institutions and served by them individuals to aid the situation. Hence
the integration of digital education in Portugal is occurring (and has been speed up by the recent
pandemics) through multiple pathways: development of digital skills among educators, their

increasingly positive attitude toward using digital tools for increasing attractiveness of learning