Loan Policies and Economic Development in a Globalized Environment

Abstract

Significant amount of the European Union (EU) budget has been allocated to different training programmes. In-order to plan future investments, current interventions financed by EU into national educational policies should be assessed. This research aims to perform a mid-term evaluation of the three-year (2015-2018) Erasmus+ project related to high school students' Information and Communication Technology (ICT) skill development in the selected schools of' Latvia, Sweden, the United Kingdom, Italy and Spain. The research method included a review of evaluation methods applied by other researchers and the European Commission, as well as quantitative and qualitative data collection methods. Quantitative data research comprised a review of the project reports and a survey in the national languages completed by the students participating in the project and collected by their teachers. The Qualitative data research consisted of semi-structured interviews with the students, teachers, project managers and different project stakeholders.The research results demonstrated that the project activities had a high value for the project stakeholders. ICT skills development is relevant to all students, as they will help them in the future studies and work, including if a person will be employed by the ICT industry, as many countries have placed ICT as a national or regional priority. The project was evaluated as very effective, as it contributed to the improvement of different skill sets of the students, such as ICT competences, communications, English, teaching, presentation, cross-cultural understanding and others. The project is coherent with other ICT skills development activities in the project countries mentioned above and in some cases, with national initiatives to assess the inclusion of ICT skills training in school programs. EU value added was achieved by exchanging information about the different teaching methods in five countries and contributing to cross-cultural understanding.The evaluation results could be used for planning future Erasmus+ projects, coordinating and consolidating various stakeholders' activities to promote in the further ICT skills training for a wider group of students and to achieve even better coherence between different activities.

Participant Opinions on the Effectiveness and Classroom Applicability of Erasmus+ School Education Staff Mobility (KA101) Projects on New Technologies - Digital Skills

“…Arabacı and Akıllı (2021) and Kunnari, Jiang and Myllykoski-Laine (2021) also found that the projects contributed positively to the development of teachers' Web 2.0 tools and ICT skills. In the international study of Androniceanu and Dragulanescu (2017), a three-year Erasmus+ project carried out in projectrun schools in Latvia, Sweden, the United Kingdom, Italy and Spain showed positive results in the development of ICT skills of high school teachers.…”