Published in Scientific Papers. Series "Management, Economic Engineering in Agriculture and rural development", Vol. 24 ISSUE 2
Written by Marian STAN, Mihai CIOBOTEA

An important factor for local communities is education. Education has a long-term influence on the community development. Education has significant differences between urban and rural regions. The purpose of this study is to analyse how the extent education can reduce these differences and particularly, the online education contribution to the development of rural communities. Also, the economic and social factors relevant for rural development were studied. This study utilized a qualitative analysis of statistical publications, academic literature, and official data from the European Commission and Eurostat. The results showed that online learning technologies provide several benefits for rural development, such as: easy access to knowledge, build new skills, exchange information with peers with similar interests, raising individual awareness of the modern topics like smart agriculture. Additional to the key factors there are challenges posed to the development of the rural communities, from which the digital divide, limited broadband coverage and the ageing of rural population that makes the online education less effective in rural communities. Through this study, it is given a contribution on how to improve the understanding of the role of online learning technologies in a sustainable rural development and to provide insights to various stakeholders, including national and regional authorities, entrepreneurs, educators and researchers.

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