With EU support, Ministry of Digital Transformation and Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine presented the results of the pilot project Updated Informatics — IT studios

The Ministry of Digital Transformation and the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine, with the support of the EU, have presented the results of the pilot project “Updated Informatics – IT Studios.” These results were discussed during an online meetup alongside the project’s participants.

Artificial intelligence, virtual reality, cloud technologies, big data, and robotics are already parts of our new reality. It all starts at school, so a decision has been made to re-imagine and update the content of school Informatics. The pilot project “Updated Informatics – IT Studios” was launched in September 2022. The pilot involved 73 teachers and over 3000 students from 50 schools.

“Starting from school, children should gain modern knowledge that will give them the opportunity to have a demanded and relevant profession in the future. Last year we launched the pilot project “Updated Informatics – IT Studios”. More than 3 thousand students from 50 schools were taught under the new system. We collected feedback from teachers, analysed the results and saw the effectiveness of the programme. We are already scaling the project to all schools in Ukraine this academic year. We want our children to gain relevant knowledge and skills and discover new possibilities,” said Mykhailo Fedorov, Deputy Prime Minister for Innovation, Education, Science and Technology Development – Minister of Digital Transformation of Ukraine.

The educational resources of IT Studios are structured along the following content lines: digital literacy, data analysis and modeling, media creativity, digital citizenship, and the basics of programming.

“‘Updated Informatics – IT Studios’ is a project about the future of Ukrainian students with new opportunities. Thanks to the collaboration of educators, scientists and top experts in the IT field, we are taking education to a whole new level, modernising the system of education and approaches to it. Digital technologies will develop even faster, so it is important to provide Ukrainian students with the necessary knowledge and skills now to give them access to a wider range of opportunities,” said the Minister of Education and Science of Ukraine Oksen Lisovyi.

Teachers highly appreciated the presentation of educational material, especially in the 4th quarter, tasks for independent performance, practical tasks, and cases. The average score of the resources developed in the fourth quarter is 4.7 out of 5.

“The IT-studio project is a testament to the cooperation between the European Union and Ukraine under the flagship EU4DigitalUA programme . The European Union warmly welcomes the project’s achievements and continues supporting Ukraine in developing its digital education, a cornerstone for today’s societies,” stated Ambassador Matti Maasikas, Head of the Delegation of the European Union to Ukraine.

The pilot ‘IT-studios’ in Ukrainian schools is an example of using the best European and international practices to create a digital educational environment. Researches conducted by Spanish experts within the framework of EU4DigitalUA on various methods of computer science education, digital assessment, and the definition of digital competency requirements for students, have become important elements in shaping new educational resources.

“From the next academic year, more than 4 million Ukrainian students will have the opportunity to study with the updated educational resources of IT Studios. This means that 4 million students will have a completely new approach to education – with a maximum focus on practice and adaptation to the new digital reality,” said Valeria Ionan, Deputy Minister of Digital Transformation of Ukraine for European Integration.

Throughout the year, the project closely collaborated with IT clusters: Kharkiv, Odesa, and Lviv. This allowed receiving feedback on updated informatics and high-quality technological expertise. The process of piloting educational resources is now complete, and they are being further developed based on the received feedback.

Background information:

The IT-studios project was created as part of the IT education reform at the initiative of The Ministry of Digital Transformation and The Ministry of Education and Science. It is implemented by the EU4DigitalUA program under the second component “Institutional strengthening and capacity development” (FIIAPP) and is financed by the European Union.

EU4DigitalUA is part of the European Union’s support to Ukraine and continues the work of the EGOV4UKRAINE project, implemented in 2016-2021 within the U-LEAD with Europe Programme. With a budget of EUR 20.5 million, EU4DigitalUA is focused on the further development of digital government infrastructure, public e-services, cyber security and data protection.

The project is funded by the European Union and jointly implemented by the e-Governance Academy (eGA, Estonia) and the International and Ibero-American Foundation for Administration and Public Policies (FIIAPP, Spain).

Media enquiries:

Alina Pirlik, Local Communication Officer, FIIAPP, alina.pirlik@ext.eu4digitalua.eu, +380 (73) 071 47 00