Assistant Minister for Information Society Sava Savić has participated today in the ceremonial opening of the state-level International Competition for IT Literacy – “Beaver” for the school year 2016/2017 in Kruševac.
There are almost 400 applicants from primary and secondary schools for this year’s competition which is concurrently held in Belgrade, Niš, Novi Sad and Kruševac. The number of pupils at the school level of the competition was 35.554, and the competition covers all ages starting from the first grade of primary school to the fourth grade of secondary school.
When addressing the pupils Mr Savić has mentioned that the Ministry of Trade, Tourism and Telecommunications is the sponsor of the competition “Beaver” for Serbia, and that it has supporting such initiatives for years, adding that he is pleased with this year’s number of applications by pupils for such type of competition as well as the success they can be proud of.
In Serbian schools IT is an optional subject, as stated by Mr Savić, who has also added that we tent to introduce IT as an obligatory subject for pupils from the fifth grade of primary schools, by which we will increase the capacities of pupils who can enrol in faculties of technical science, and thus create the staff to work in the IT industry, which is in deficit today.
“More than a half of designed new jobs in the field of science, technology and engineering are of IT profession”, Mr Savić has said.
Assistant Minister has stated that the Ministry tends to connect all primary and secondary schools to the Academic Network of the Republic of Serbia (ANRS), by which all the schools will get a stable, safe and free Internet access, active protection and online support, as well as the possibility to use international services of e-Education.
Deputy Mayor of Kruševac Jasmina Palurović, the Principal of PS “Dragomir Marković” Mr Saša Jevtić, who is also a member of the programme board withed the present pupils a lot of success.
The most successful competitors will be given a tablet computer and IT books.
This is the fourth time Serbia is taking part in the competition “Beaver” is an international initiative originating from Lithuania where it was organised in 2004, and this year pupils from 55 countries are competing, and based on the number of pupils Serbia is among the first 10 countries.
