AAATE joined the DIGI READY project consortium. The 24-month long project aims to implement digital structures in the educational setting with a special focus on students with special educational needs (SEN) and accessibility.

In the midst of the COVID 19 pandemic, the world moved online which inevitably moved education online. The trend of digitalisation was accelerated, but not everyone was prepared and equipped with the right tools to cope with moving almost completely online. People with disabilities were among a few of those whose needs were not completely met.

In this context, when we focus the lens on education, vocational educational training (VET) centres took quite a hit as they had to close due to the pandemic. Adapting to remote teaching was and continues to be a challenge for the educational sector. To combat the lack of digital skills and necessary digital infrastructure, the DIGI READY project will attempt at:

• setting up of a new mindset with educators to use digital structures in their daily work
• according to the pandemic every VET center and school system has to deal with a new form of teaching
• knowledge how to transfer digital changes into the educational sector and to address all targeted groups of these institutions

The idea is to provide short, medium, and long-term solutions, innovative approaches and instruments for VET educators and decision makers with a clear focus on the educational environment and accessibility especially for learners with special needs for a good, well-balanced, inclusive digital education.

In the bigger picture, the outcomes of the project will come in handy to the education sector in Europe during any potential emergency like an earthquake, health crisis etc.

The next steps of the project will focus on collecting good practices that have been used by organisations in Europe to cope with the digital transformation in the education sector. This will be used to develop a Good Practices Catalogue that will incorporate good ideas and mechanisms that were implemented by organisations with respect to digital readiness in the educational sector during the COVID19 pandemic.

The project partners of DIGI READY are:

• Intenationaler Bund Mitte gGmbH
• European University Cyprus
• Johannes Kepler Universität Linz
• Technische Universität Dresden
• Daugavpils tehnikums
• Darzhavno predpriyatie
• Associazione Italiana Assistenza Spastici
• Association for the Advancement of Assistive Technology in Europe
• European Association of Service Provides for People with Disabilities