Developing Digital Competence of Roma Children Erasmus Project

Project Title

Developing Digital Competence of Roma Children

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Partnerships for Digital Education Readiness

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2020

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Early School Leaving / combating failure in education; Romas and/or other minorities; ICT – new technologies – digital competences

Project Summary

The DigiUp project is the result of the cooperation of partner organizations from three countries – Slovenia, Croatia and the Republic of Northern Macedonia. Participating organizations in the project are identified at the local and regional level, as well as at the national level, as key actors in working with members of the Roma community in the implementation of projects aimed at the latter. They are also connected by common previous experience gained in participating in international projects.
The project idea arose during the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic, when primary schools had to adapt to emergency situations, which required moving teaching from classrooms to the digital environment of online classrooms, for which primary schools were not prepared. This proved to be particularly difficult for pupils coming from the Roma community who did not find themselves in the digital environment of online classrooms, as they did not have the knowledge to access them, which led to them being completely inactive during the distance learning. All of this had a negative impact on their success at the end of the school year, as drop-out rates increased among Roma pupils compared to previous years.
In order to solve the problems caused by the disadvantages of Roma children, partner organizations tried to solve or at least mitigate the situation during the pandemic so we looked for long-term solutions together with the primary schools attended by Roma pupils. We consider it important to empower primary schools to provide high-quality inclusive digital education for such a vulnerable group in the field of education as Roma pupils, thus enabling them to be equally involved in distance learning. For this reason, it is necessary to develop and upgrade the basic digital competencies of Roma assistants, and to train them to the extent that they will transfer the acquired knowledge to Roma pupils. To achieve these goals, the partner organizations will prepare a detailed study at the beginning of the project to analyze the current situation and needs in the field of digital competence development of Roma pupils in each country from which the partner organizations come, which will serve as a basis for further activities. Based on the study, a training program for Roma assistants will be created, which will take into account the specifics of distance learning for Roma pupils. The training program will include modules designed to develop digital competencies for Roma pupils at the grade level as well as for students at the subject level. As part of the training program, we will also dedicate individual contents to teachers who take care of the development of digital competencies in primary school, so that they can gain insight into why Roma pupils face a number of challenges when working in an online environment. Pilot training of Roma assistants will be carried out in all three countries (Slovenia, Croatia, Republic of Northern Macedonia), and 12 Roma assistants will be included in each pilot training.
We will also create an online platform that will be a basic tool for Roma assistants, and will contain content and various digital tools and innovative approaches to transferring knowledge to pupils. We will also develop two curricula for the development of digital competencies of Roma pupils, one for the grade level and one for the subject level of primary education.
The latter will be based on data of the needs of Roma pupils in the development of digital competencies, which will be acquired as part of the first intellectual result. It will serve Roma assistants so that, with prior consideration of the needs of Roma pupils in distance learning, they can follow the developed curriculum in order to be able to transfer digital skills or knowledge to Roma pupils as efficiently and effectively as possible.
The project will last for 24 months, from March 2021 to March 2023, during which we will hold 6 international project meetings the first and last will be held directly in the countries of the participating organizations (Slovenia and Republic of Northern Macedonia). The remaining 4 international meetings will be held with the help of MS Teams, due to the unknown future situation or the unknown epidemiological picture in Europe.
We will also take care of the dissemination of the project and project activities, for this purpose we will develop an information and communication strategy and promotional material that will attract the interested public to start following the project and activities within it.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 127780 Eur

Project Coordinator

Ljudska univerza Zavod za izobrazevanje odraslih in mladine Lendava & Country: SI

Project Partners

• Zveza za razvoj romske manjsine Preporod
• Pucko otvoreno uciliste Cakovec
• Udruga za obrazovanje Roma – “UZOR”
• NGO KHAM Delcevo
• RAZVOJNI CENTER MURSKA SOBOTA