ICONS about us

International Community of Online Schools

A short history

The initiative for ICONS was taken in early 2023 by d-teach online school, the first online school in Belgium, that has been specializing in online education for expat families for more than 10 years.
The initiative grew within the accelerator process of the digital education hub of the European Commission.

The need for online education is growing worldwide and its added value is increasingly recognized, especially since the corona crisis.

ICONS was officially launched on 3 March 2023, with its founding members constituting the Board. In its launching phase ICONS operates as a non-legal entity, with d-teach online school serving as its secretariat.

Our mission

What?

Building a virtual international community of online schools, dedicated and willing to contribute to realise the SDG4 goal of ensuring inclusive and equitable education and promoting lifelong learning opportunities for all.

Why?

Advocacy: supporting online schools in their efforts to be officially recognised by the government as fully-fledged education actors (level playing field); spreading the message about the complementary added value of online education compared to traditional face-to-face education.

Inspiration: encouraging mutual exchange of information and relevant good practices to gain new insights and improve processes (e.g. online teacher training, quality assurance in online education, IT platforms, etc.).

Joint applications for international funding: creating a permanent pool of like-minded partners who can form a consortium to attract projects from different sources (Erasmus+, Horizon Europe, UN, World Bank, UNESCO, etc.) serving both current and un(der)served target groups (e.g. refugees, victims of natural disasters).