The Future of Education

The paper will address the opportunities and challenges of a specific activity in the framework of the Erasmus+ program: the long-term mobility of upper secondary school students in general schools. One of the tools upon which the EU aims to achieve the European Education Area(EEA)  by 2030 stands in mobility of learners in Europe. While Higher Education Institutions have developed advanced mobility schemes and a wide offer of international activities for their students, non-vocational upper secondary schools are still mainly linked to short term mobility of students. Long-term opportunities for students both in Europe and overseas are to a great extent managed by private actors while, contrary to what happens at HE level, schools are at margins of the process and often lack organizational capacity to manage these kind of activities.
Against this background, and on the basis of the first results emerging from the E+ project DEEDS, the authors will explore the main obstacles that general schools are facing in developing joint long term initiative aspiring to creating a common ground with other schools through the development of common study programs based on shared assessment methods. At the same time, attention will be dedicated to the potential and possible impact that such transnational cooperation arrangements among schools can have on the achievement of the long-term goals of the EEA.