Supporting Vocational Teachers Under the Lock-Down

Entire education systems have moved entirely or substantially to distance learning (DL) as governments have imposed lockdowns and closed schools in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Ministry officials, school directors, teachers and pedagogues shared their experiences and reflections during the webinar Vocational Learning at a Distance: Supporting Vocational Teachers Under the Lock Down on 26 May.

The first in a series by the European Training Foundation (ETF) that will take place over the coming weeks, the webinar included speakers from ETF partner countries and European Union Member States. Some themes were common across different countries:

• Provision of national guidance and training, brokering deals with technology and telecoms companies
• Support, training and communication for school leaders to empower them to manage
• Peer-to-peer learning for school directors and teachers to provide information, skills and moral support
• Enabling collaboration – so that digital resources, know-how and systems can be shared
• Adapting to local conditions
• Monitoring of participation, identifying those groups that are getting left behind, reviewing the quality of distance learning

The first steps generally involved the development of guidelines and, where necessary, changes in legislation. Most countries offered short, on-line training programmes to teachers so that they could work from home. These were sometimes followed up by more advanced programmes.

In some places, especially rural areas and poor regions, not all homes had computers and high speed Internet access. Portugal provided computers to students and worked with local officials and service providers to ensure Internet access for students. Moldova gave notebook computers to some teachers who needed them, and asked Internet providers to give them free unlimited access. In some countries, platform providers offered free services for the special period.

In Portugal, the initial focus of training was on head teachers so that they could exercise leadership and make appropriate decision for their schools. Because it was getting near the end of the term in many places, new assessment methodologies had to be implemented.

In some countries, such as Armenia and Portugal, all of the above involved new legislation.

The shift toward online distance learning made monitoring more challenging but equally more urgent.  In Kazakhstan, oversight started on a daily basis. It included emails, phone calls and the evaluation of pedagogical materials. Students and teachers were surveyed. In Israel, inspectors systematically monitored online classes.

Where schools already had expertise, much support and training could be provided within the school. Some teachers provided webinars for each other. In Estonia, weekly teacher meetings continued via online tools and in-house Intranet systems. In Latvia and in Albania, established networks were able to build upon the trust and established systems to share know-how through webinars and to create digital instruction materials collectively.

Speakers made the point that, even during a crisis, it is important to build upon existing competence and strategies. In Portugal, national officials did not dictate a single online platform. Many schools had already been using different ones, and they were encouraged to keep using those. This helped speed up implementation.

There was a consensus about the difficulty of providing practical training for vocational students. Normally there will be learning in workshops, laboratories or companies, but during the lockdown most of those were closed. The only area that wasn’t affected, obviously, was ICT. But some people found creative alternatives. In Estonia, hospitality students were asked to serve breakfast to their family and make a video of how things went. Many teachers unearthed or developed video tutorials on a variety of subjects.

Find out more:

A recording of the webinar is available at: Vocational Learning at a Distance: Supporting Vocational Teachers Under the Lock Down

Slides from the event available at https://openspace.etf.europa.eu/pages/etf-webinar-vocational-learning-distance-supporting-vocational-teachers-under-lock-down

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