During the pandemic, almost all education institutions switched to distance learning. As Papazoglou (2020) put it, "distance learning in all education grades is no panacea, as it gives rise to a number of pedagogical and social issues." Many deaf and hard-of-hearing children faced real difficulties during distance learning courses. Video conferencing brought technical problems, and most importantly, there was no live transcription or subtitling of what the teacher said on camera. This was a serious obstacle for deaf and hard-of-hearing individuals, and for those with severe hearing loss who rely on lip reading. On top of that, there was no targeted feedback when they needed it, and the material provided was mostly standardised.

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This happened because education programmes, in our country and around the world, are usually designed first for people without disabilities, with people with disabilities added in later. This has always been the wrong approach, and it has had a negative effect on the education of people with disabilities — the pandemic was no exception. Even though some measures were taken to help students without disabilities reach online and distance education, the vast majority of students with disabilities, especially the hearing impaired, were neglected and received little to no attention during the pandemic.

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Within the scope of our project, we prepared and developed a Distance Learning Platform (DLP) for deaf and hard-of-hearing individuals. Once the DLP was completed, we developed a Distance Education Curriculum for deaf and hard-of-hearing people who wanted to become a cook or chef, or who wanted to improve their professional knowledge and skills while already working in the field. While building the curriculum, we combined professional sign language with general sign language teaching techniques, encouraging its use so that it would be reinforced over time. These two outputs were among the first of their kind in Europe for distance learning aimed at deaf and hard-of-hearing individuals, and we believe they set a good example for similar work in the future. We also prepared the educational content and a Sign Language Dictionary for Culinary/Cooking Terminology.

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We developed and delivered the distance education system and all educational materials completely free of charge and with open access. This meant our target group, and others with fewer opportunities, could access vocational training online whenever they wanted and wherever they were. With our project, we did our part to lift the educational, economic, social and geographical barriers facing deaf and hard-of-hearing people — work that aligns directly with the Inclusion and Diversity priority of the Erasmus+ Programme. Our project and its results contributed to innovation in vocational education and training, and increased the flexibility of opportunities within it. We believe it improved the employability of young deaf and hard-of-hearing people, contributed to the skills development of people of all ages, from 7 to 70, and helped set an example for improving accessibility elsewhere too.

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Our project was built on the European Commission's 2021–2027 Digital Education Action Plan, and reflected its strategic priorities:

Fostering the development of a high-performing digital education ecosystem
Enhancing digital skills and competences for the digital transformation