On December 11th this year, a webinar “Erasmus best practices” was held with the participation of international experts. The organizers were representatives of the University of Arad: Western University Vasile Goldis in Romania. The words were given to the Vice-Rector of this university, Professor Cristian Bente and Dr. Dragana Ignjatovich Ristic, psychiatrist, Faculty of Medical Sciences, University of Kragujevac (Dragana Ignjatovich Ristic MD, MSc, PhD Psychiatrist. Faculty of medical Science, University of Kragujevac, Serbia)
During the meeting, Christian Bente spoke about teaching students during a pandemic with a presentation “Education During pandemics – challenges and opportunities”. Arad University students are currently on distance learning. For the educational process, the web platforms Moodle (for using materials, written exams) and Google Classroom (for seminars), Google Meet (oral exams) are used. In addition, some problems were listed that are looking for solutions at this stage: training both students and teachers to work with new applications, systems, technical problems, providing quality education online, organizing international cooperation. At the end of his speech, the professor expressed his fears that the return to the traditional (offline) system will be difficult.
The second speaker was Dr. Dragana Ignatovic Ristic, psychiatrist, Faculty of Medical Sciences, Kragujevac University (Serbia). The doctor made a presentation on “Mental health of students and academic staff in the new reality”. Dr. Ignatovich and his colleagues conducted a survey among university students, the collected data were eventually collected and published in a scientific journal. According to Dr. Ignatovic, the most of the respondents (57%) were not stressed during the pandemic (a total lockdown was introduced in Serbia from March to May 2020). Only 16% had significant stress. The results were assessed according to the DASS (Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale), BRS (Brief Resilience Scale) scales.