State Secretary in the Ministry of Trade, Tourism, and Telecommunications Tatjana Matić has pointed out that the digitalisation of education is a priority of that Ministry.
At the opening of the fair “New technologies in education” in Belexpo Centre, State Secretary has reminded that the Ministry of Trade, Tourism, and Telecommunications, in cooperation with the Ministry of Education, Science, and Technological Development, has launched the capital “Project for improving the information and communication infrastructure in schools in the Republic of Serbia”.
“The configuration of connecting 1612 primary and secondary schools in the Academic network of Serbia was completed last year.
All schools got free and safe internet with the ability of use of international education services. Our next step is to ensure digital teaching services, and the goal is a full application of new technologies in education, and introduction of the own device concept. Ministry has allocated 200 million dinars for this year for 200 primary and secondary schools, which as chosen by the Ministry of Education will enter this programme”, says Ms Matić, adding that last year, in cooperation with the Microsoft company, an important infrastructural project of introducing Wi-Fi in schools in rural areas was conducted, for 40 primary and secondary schools, and that it institutionally supported the regional project “Schools for the 21st century” of the British Council.
“We are paying a special attention to the online safety of children, since that they are the most vulnerable user group on the Internet. Based on the Regulation on Online Safety of Children, on February 27 last year, we launched the National Contact Centre for Online Safety of Children, which has had 4883 calls so far. Also, for three consecutive years we are conducting the campaign of the IT Caravan which encourages primary school children to protect themselves on the Internet, but also to use the new technologies in education”, says Ms Matić, stating that this year, the presentation and digital workshops for children and parents, were held in Novi Pazar, Belgrade, Novi Sad, Subotica, Niš and Ub, for 30 schools and over 3000 primary school pupils, and the live broadcast of the presentation was organised from Niš and Novi Pazar, watched by over 800 schools and around 25000 pupils.
Ms Matić has used the opportunity to invite the teachers to participate in the call “Digital Class” which has been realised six times and thus collected around 1500 teaching units done with the new technologies, which are available online.
“If we provide the coming generations with the adequate starting point our children will have the chance not only to be competitive with their peer in the world, but also to make the world a better place. A systemic support to digitalisation of formal education will contribute, inter alia, to the development of the IT staff, which is a strategic objective defined in the Strategy for IT Industry Development. However, the innovative teaching will encourage digital skills which are necessary for the jobs of the future”, says State Secretary.
