The impact of digital transformation on the continuing training of Hungarian teachers – Peculiarities of distance education

One of the specific areas of the global digital transformation in education is the continuing professional training of teachers. In this formal adult training that has taken place alongside work in the last 30 years, the impact of digital transformation can be considered a process suitable for general conclusions. About 25,000 students have graduated from the teacher leadership training program of the Budapest University of Technology and Economics (BME) in the past three decades. This paper presents the content and organizational development process of this training program from the point of view of digitization transformation .The analysis of the theoretical and practical connections of the process analyzes the new kind of adult education characteristics of the function realized between 1993-2023 in parallel with the Digital Transformation. One aspect was based on a comparative study with international trends analysis), which resulted in the developing a new distance education model. From a methodological point of view, our innovation being described was essentially action research. Network structures were significantly created: teachers working in small and development groups comprising senior consultants."Distance education," which initially used classic correspondence solutions, was significantly transformed after the turn of the millennium precisely due to Digital Transformation. Learning Management Systems (LMS) and online solutions that make network communication continuous were developed between 2006-2018. This form of training proves with data that ways and opportunities can be created for quality training alongside work within the lifelong learning framework. The continuously detectable high level of student satisfaction indicates that, in addition to the many tensions of our current way of life and the confinement caused by the pandemic between 2020 and 2022 in the last few years, the prominence of online communication solutions can give a realistic chance of realizing the adult education goals by networking.