New Horizons of Internationalisation through E-learning: Developing Teacher Digital Competence

Abstract

The European programmes and strategies to internationalise higher education are considered to be important stimulators and facilitators for the internationalisation of higher education in Europe and elsewhere in the world including Russia. With the Bologna process, the internationalisation of higher education in Russia has been taken to the national level. According to the National Program Education Development for 2013-2020, the internationalisation of higher education is considered as a means to improve the quality of higher education. The present article contains theoretical and practical results of the research, which fall into three parts. In the first part the authors systematise the issue of internationalisation by giving an overview. The paper focuses on the policies of internationalisation and the rationale of the internationalisation for Russian Universities which gleam in the growing importance of national and international rankings especially for evaluation of quality teaching and competitiveness of universities. The second part focuses on E-learning as particular aspect of internationalisation. The authors present the historic perspective of digital learning and dwell upon numerous initiatives on the digital revolution. The third part proves that professional development is an essential element of teacher education and professional advancement. Such a continuous learning and training assures a high level of knowledge and enables teachers to keep their professional skills and knowledge up-to-date. All three parts of the study are logically interconnected and serve the main objective of the research to prove that such processes as Internationalisation has considerable effect on developing Teacher Digital Competence.