Abstract:

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced societies to adhere to abnormal working conditions and learn new practices. In many cases the crisis has brought about migration of the urban dwellers to the countryside, which has largely been ignored due to the economic focus in the urban centers. This shift has motivated the need for developing the rural communities through smart learning initiatives. In our presentation, we will adapt the Smart Rural Development model (SRDm) by Lindblom et al. (2021) to explain how Smart education could be harnessed for promoting Smart rural initiatives. Based on our analysis of the current peripheral premise in the framework of SRDm, we argue that successful implementations of Smart education in the rural settings are determined by the modernization of strategic policy and locally supporting capacity development. Our position with this paper will guide learning initiatives and policy formulation regarding the digitalisation efforts within the business clusters, SMEs and regional stakeholders in the rural communities.

We will explore the challenging and acute aspects for strategic regional development operations and digital learning to tackle the negative effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond. Our observation will focus to the framework of digitalisation projects and learning culture within the rural society and SMEs located in the peripheral areas. Many overarching strategies acknowledge that more effective knowledge transfer is needed for the peripheral societies and businesses to achieve modern IT development demands (e.g. OECD 2020). The pandemic has increased the national migration towards the rural areas which paves way for development and learning aspirations in the countryside.

The effective role of both governmental and local level strategies and development programs vary internationally from reactive and predictive to creative and conductive. Thus, when elaborating regional strategy as an evolving learning process, important policy related questions arise: how could the rural regions enhance collective learning in the digital environment? How could the local communities benefit the most from the combination of the top-down and bottom-up strategic programs? To elaborate this set of possibilities, we will harness the SRDm for exploration of learning within the governmental, community and individual levels. We assess the transformational potential of the Smart countryside via learning initiatives, with new policy tools and enhanced ICT-skills within the local business clusters, SMEs, and individuals - generated via the framework of SRDm. Based on the previous research, components described in the SRDm have positive leverage to the rural region to tackle the downside of centralization and urbanization. We argue that regional stakeholders and government policy makers alike should leverage the key drivers identified in the SRDm to guide the implementation of Smart rural initiatives.

In our ICERI presentation we investigate and present our analysis of the SRDm and its components, as these drivers present avenues for contemporary strategic development that could be most beneficial to rural learning and development. Our presentation will also contribute to the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 4 (Quality education), 9 (Industry, innovation and infrastructure) and 11 (Sustainable cities and communities).

Keywords:

Smart education, Regional development, Learning, Policy interventions, Smart Rural Development model.