Libera Università Maria Ss. Assunta

Libera Università Maria Ss. Assunta

Founded in 1939, LUMSA is the second oldest university in Rome and a highly ranked Higher education institution in Italy, with over 9000 students (10% international from 55 different countries).

University teaching is distributed across three departments: Law, Economics and Politics and Modern languages; Social Sciences – Communication, Education and Psychology; Law and Economics. Since 1999 it is also operating in Palermo, Sicily.

LUMSA proposes totally 19 degrees, B.A. and M.A degree programs among which law, business administration, economics, education, communication/marketing, and psychology. LUMSA awards Ph.D. degrees in social policy, law, psychology, education and economics, classified as highly “innovative” by Italian Minister.

Maria Cinque

Associate Professor of General Didactics and Special Pedagogy at the Department of Human Studies of LUMSA. President of the Degree course of Science of Education. She has directed different courses for teacher training (on special educational needs, gifted children, autism spectrum disorders). She is the author of more than 100 publications and her main research interests focus on soft skills and non-cognitive competences, coaching and creativity. She has been involved with different projects at international and national level. Among them, different Erasmus+ Strategic Partnership Projects: Kitchen Lab for Kids (2018-21) with the role of coordinator of Lumsa Unit; eLene4LIFE: Learning and interacting to foster employability (2018-21) with the role of coordinator of Lumsa Unit; eLene4work: Learning to learn for new digital soft skills for employability (2014-17), with the role of researcher and coordinator of Output.

Claudio Pensieri

Claudio Pensieri works in the Clinical Leadership Team of the University Hospital Campus Bio-Medico, he is responsible for clinical training and communication. He is adjunt professor at LUMSA and University Campus Bio-Medico of Rome. Since 2006 he is a trainer in the fields of communication, pedagogy and management.

Digital Education Action Plan: an educational ecosystem to foster the digital and green transition

„Increasing the quality and inclusiveness of education and training systems and fostering the development of digital skills in all citizens during the digital and green transition is of strategic importance” reads the Action Plan created by the European Union for the period 2021-27 in order to respond to the rapid technological transformation of our societies, bridging the inequalities that emerge at the territorial level with regard to digital.

The plan identifies two main areas for action

  1. promote the development of a highly efficient digital education ecosystem
  2. improving digital competences and skills for digital transformation

The pandemic has highlighted the need for higher levels of digital capacity in education and training, but has also amplified a number of existing challenges and inequalities between those with access to digital technologies and those without, including those from disadvantaged backgrounds. In addition, it has highlighted a number of challenges for education and training systems related to the digital capacity of educational institutions, teacher training and overall levels of digital skills and competences, which affect not only schools but the whole world of education….

Indeed, „enhancing digital competences and skills for digital transformation” requires, inter alia, basic digital skills and competences from an early age, digital literacy, including combating misinformation, good knowledge of data-intensive technologies, ensuring that girls and young women are equally represented in digital studies and careers.

This is why the plan is not only aimed at schools but has a wider scope.

The Digital Education Action Plan identifies a set of guiding principles to ensure further improvement of quality and education in Europe in the coming years.

These guiding principles are divided into four areas:

Ethos: Transforming education for the digital age is a task for all of society; digital education plays a key role in increasing equality and inclusion.

Leadership and investment: Education leaders play a key role in digital education. Appropriate investment is needed in improvements, e.g., connectivity, equipment, organizational capacity, and skills.

Digital skills, literacy and competencies: Many people require advanced digital competencies for employment, however, basic digital competencies (knowledge, skills and attitudes)

are considered essential to the lives of all citizens. Digital should be a core competency for all educators.

Digital educational content: High quality educational content is needed to increase the relevance, quality and inclusiveness of European education at all levels; such content should be readily available.

Starting from these assumptions, the LUMSA University will activate from October 2021 a new three-year course, within the degree course in Science of Education, dedicated to Digital Education.

For information: m.cinque@lumsa.it