Results of the third quarter of Updated Informatics — IT-studios

The Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine and the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine within the framework of the EU4DigitalUA programme, funded by the European Union, presented the primary results of the pilot project Updated Informatics — IT studios and the outcomes of the third quarter of the 2022-2023 academic year.

A survey conducted among teachers based on the results of the first quarter of the 2022-2023 school year showed that children and teachers were happy to use innovative educational materials that replace textbooks by 50-70%.

“In Ukraine, the demand for IT specialties continues to grow — in 2021, almost 17,000 graduates received a bachelor’s degree in IT, and by 2025, their number may reach 23,000. IT studios represent an updated computer science curriculum that helps Ukrainian children deepen their knowledge of the world of information technology and learn about the work of the professionals in this field. The project will provide students with the opportunity to choose a career in IT in the future, receive a decent salary, and join socially important and technological projects that shape today’s and future society,” noted Valeriya Ionan, Deputy Minister of Digital Transformation for European Integration.

Currently, in the last quarter, pilot educational resources on digital citizenship and cybersecurity are being implemented.

“We want the number of IT specialists in Ukraine to constantly grow. To do this, we need to prepare them now. Our task was to update the school computer science curriculum in such a way that it meets modern needs and gives children the opportunity to acquire contemporary skills. We also wanted to enable teachers to use new tools and approaches to teach computer science. Thanks to our partners in the EU, Ukrainian experts, IT associations, and businesses, we have succeeded,” informed Dmytro Zavgorodnii, Deputy Minister of Education and Science for Digital Development, Digital Transformation, and Digitalisation.

Recall that the project “Updated Informatics – IT Studios” was launched in September 2022. It involves 50 schools, 70 teachers, and over 3,000 students. Schools were selected from 405 applications. Among them: 28% of institutions are from villages, towns, and urban-type settlements; 34% of institutions are from cities; 26% of institutions are from regional centers, and 12% of institutions are from the capital.

“The IT-studios project is a testament to the strong ongoing support of the European Union to Ukraine under its flagship program, EU4DigitalUA. As the success of the digital society and economy, and the sustainability of Ukraine’s digital success story, will depend on its youth, it is critical that citizens have the right digital competencies to be competitive in the digital society. Thus, we are thrilled to welcome the 3rd quarter results and witness the tangible improvements it is bringing to the quality of IT education in Ukraine, “ stated Xavier Camus, Head of Good Governance and Rule of Law Section, Delegation of the European Union to Ukraine. 

In the third quarter, the project team managed to combine programming with history, art, music, and literature. They also learned a lot of interesting things about the professions of mobile app and video game developers, and figured out the difference between an artist and a designer.

“The EU4DigitalUA program is continuing to make every effort to support the Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine and the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine in bringing the latest digital literacy practices to Ukraine with the Updated Informatics – IT studios project. With the support of the European Union, by collaborating with international and Ukrainian experts, we aim to provide students from grades 1 to 11 with the necessary digital competencies to thrive in the modern world.” – says Maria Gaston Betran, FIIAPP Technical Institutional Coordinator of EU4DigitalUA.

Leading Ukrainian experts were involved in the project to create educational content, effectively implement the latest digital technologies in teaching, learning, and assessing students from grades 1 to 11. Representatives of IT clusters and IT associations in Ukraine were also involved, providing technological expertise in creating new topics not previously covered in the school subject “Computer Science,” and in creating educational videos with experts who actually work in IT. Among them are Kharkiv IT Cluster, Odesa IT Family, and Lviv IT Cluster, which joined discussions and technical consultations.

“In the third quarter, there was training in algorithmization and modeling, as well as programming. Students learned to create algorithms and programs in different environments suitable for their age. For example, primary grades worked with interactive resources on Code.Org, students in grades 5-6 created their own animation and game projects in the Scratch environment. 7th graders mastered visual programming using the Processing language, students in grades 8-9 learned Python and its various libraries. High school students had the opportunity to get acquainted with three programming languages at once (Python, JavaScript, C++), comparing them with each other and expanding their skills in creating software projects,” commented Oksana Pasichnyk, analyst of the Updated Informatics – IT Studios project.

EU4DigitalUA established the office of the project and involved the best European and Ukrainian IT experts to create high-quality content for students from the 1st to the 11th grade. The programme conducted a research on dozens of teaching platforms to provide the best practices for IT-studios, as well as assist with the creation of digital competencies frameworks to define the combination of knowledge and skills that students should possess.

Next school year, after the pilot, it is planned to scale the updated course to all schools, so that 4 million students can learn digital literacy. The course will be freely available online for all Сomputer Science teachers and schoolchildren of Ukraine.