Abstract:

The third decade of the 21st century began with a global pandemic, COVID-19, officially stated as such by World Health Organization on March 11th, 2020. Besides the health and humanitarian aspects which were obvious since the beginning, soon people became aware of the economic turmoil it was going to cause. Thousands and thousands of people were affected, and millions of euro were allocated to small and medium-size enterprises and companies in order to survive and, if possible, look at the same time for solutions to oppose the pandemic and limit its effects. Thus, the exponential evolution of the situation seems to have a serious impact upon all the fields of activity, starting from healthcare and economy, where the effects are absolutely devastating, up to education, where specialists in the field are still trying to identify solutions for mitigating the crisis and keeping up educational activities. It is true, at this moment, the virtual world abounds in e-Learning platforms and many schools, irrespective of level, are using them; yet some questions should be asked. Are these systems efficient on the whole educational scale if they are used exclusively? Are these platforms capable of creating sufficient competences and skills to the students without having nothing but the on-line interaction with colleagues and teachers? In this context, due to its specificities and particular features, a real challenge was perceived at the level of higher military education. “Carol I” National Defense University in Bucharest has such a platform that ensures an appropriate workflow for the structures of the university and other international military institutions. At the same time, it is a partner of the most important organism focused on research-development and standardization in e-Learning in USA and is actively involved in the common effort of promoting quality and interoperability in this field. However, building competences in a military leader is highly based on face-to-face training, interaction, role-play, brainstorming meetings, on the need to actually appear in front of people, interact with them, observe them and lead them. An e-Learning platform is able to facilitate distance interaction, transmit theoretical notions and monitor the level of accumulating knowledge; are all these enough for a military student – future commander? Taking into consideration the current context, an answer to this question may be obtained by conducting qualitative research of the phenomenon, relying on the essential elements of such an educational process and the exploratory character of research.

Keywords:

Military education, e-learning, leader, competences.