Page 240 - International Perspectives on Effective Teaching and Learning in Digital Education
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Manuel Lillo-Crespo
da Vinci covering education and training (in the period 1995–6) and the
Lifelong Learning programme succeeding these from 7–13. In 14 the
EU created a single overarching programme for Education, Training, Youth and
Sport. Given its resounding success over the years and the fact that Erasmus
was far more widely known than the other programme titles, it was decid-
ed to extend the Erasmus brand name to the whole of the new programme.
The ‘+’ is meant to recall that the programme supports more sectors than just
higher education as it did at its origins. In this second phase, nowadays the
programme is focused on four overarching priorities: (a) supporting the green
transition, (b) addressing the digital transformation, (c) promoting social inclu-
sion and diversity and (d) fostering stronger participation in democratic life,
common values and civic engagement. In the fields of health professions, un-
til now the European higher education mobility action only supported physi-
cal and blended mobility of higher education students in any study field and
cycle (short cycle, bachelor, master and doctoral levels). Students could either
study abroad at a partner higher education institution or carry out a trainee-
ship in an enterprise, a research institute, a laboratory, an organisation or any
other relevant workplace abroad. Students could also combine a study period
abroad with a traineeship, further enhancing the learning outcomes and de-
velopment of transversal skills. While long term physical or face-to-face mobil-
ity used to be strongly encouraged, nowadays and especially since Covid-19
pandemic this action plan recognises the need to offer more flexible physical
mobility duration to ensure the programme is accessible to students from all
backgrounds, circumstances and study fields and therefore digital learning
options could be the key solution. Specifically in the case of European health
professions’ education, digitalisation under the umbrella of the European dig-
ital health framework -presented until now- seems to be the path to be fol-
lowed. The Mobility action has also aimed until now to foster employability,
social inclusion, civic engagement, innovation and environmental sustainabil-
ity in Europe and beyond by enabling students from all study fields and at all
study cycles to have the opportunity to study or train abroad as part of their
studies and again digitalision could guarantee this as everyday the number of
jobs based on technologies and digital tools are increasing without any need
to move from home. The objectives of the traditional mobility action – apart
from the main one based on the cultural approach and immersion – that could
be assured by including digitalisation are, among others (Pereira et al., 4):
1) expose students to different views, knowledge, teaching and research
methods as well as work practices in their study field in the European
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