OPTOMETRY CURRICULUM FOR LIFELONG LEARNING THROUGH ERASMUS

The scope of optometry practice has a large range of variability around the world [1]. Even in Europe, important differences can be found among countries [2] thus, the training optometrists receive may also be disparate. To harmonize optometry education, the European Council of Optometry and Optics (ECOO) introduced the European Optometry Diploma (EDO) [3] in 2000 as a gold standard curriculum. The main aim of the project is to guide Higher Education Institutions (HEI) from India and Israel to obtain EOD accreditation. Four HEI from Europe, two from Israel and three from India received an ERASMUS+ programme grant to work on the present project. The project is divided into 5 work packages (WP): benchmarking the optometric programs (WP1), developing and piloting pedagogic resources (WP2), following a quality plan (WP3), disseminating the project outputs (WP4) and management (WP5). The kick off meeting was held in November 2016 and since then, the first steps of WP1 and WP2 and several dissemination actions have been accomplished. The first action was the gap analysis: EOD competencies that are not worked on in the curriculum. The second action was an overlapping analysis: competencies that are taught more than once throughout the curriculum. From that, a Pedagogical Transformation Plan (PTP) was written for each institution. The PTP might contain a training proposal for the faculty members of the Israel and India institutions, which consists of training sessions organized in the institutions and on-line courses. The training phase is planned to be completed during the first semester of 2018. Until now the authors conclude that: (1) The project is proceeding according to the programmed agenda, (2) the working plan is resulting in a good environment to promote teaching experience interchange among the participants and (3) faculty members mobility, as part of the training the trainers sessions, provide an excellent opportunity to visit other institutions and compare the teaching methods and strategies.