In response to the request of the Ministry of Education of Azerbaijan Republic to carry out independent assessment of the state-of-the-art of ICT application in education for further development in this area, IITE has launched the project aiming to provide the expert support and technical assistance to the Azerbaijan Republic.
Information and communication technologies are widely introduced in all spheres of Azerbaijan society, in education, in particular. The use of ICTs in secondary education is supported by the State programmes and Ministry regulations, and include supply of schools with necessary equipment, the development and introduction of electronic textbooks, training and professional development of educational personnel, providing access to the Internet.
The Office on Informatization of Education created under the Ministry of Education and its Information Resource Center play the leading role in the process of informatization of the education sector in the country and an "access point" for connecting Azerbaijan education network to the Internet.
From 27 November to 03 December 2011 IITE expert Mr Vittorio MIDORO, Professional Consultant in Technology Enhanced Learning Systems, visited Azerbaijan in order to evaluate the effectiveness of ICT application in education and to provide recommendations on further development in the area. The visit was organized in cooperation with Ministry of Education of the Azerbaijan Republic.
During his visit to Azerbaijan Mr Midoro visited several secondary schools in Baku, Guba and Sumgait, had meetings with key stakeholders of the process of ICT implementation in education, representing the Ministry of Education (MoE), the Bureau on ICT for Education, Bureau on Education Management Information Systems, the Project Coordination Group in MoE; Microsoft Azerbaijan, Madad – the MOE partner in teacher training, AzEduNet –MOE partnet in providing Internet services, ULTRA – MOE partner in educational portal development, national education database, school management system, learning resources.
During his visit Mr Midoro has also participated in the International Conference Teacher Competencies in Knowledge Society: Policy, Pedagogy, Social Skills, organized by IITE in Baku. He delivered presentation “Pioneer Teachers’ Continuing Professional Development in ICT for Education” at the Plenary Session and took part in ICT Competencies and Teacher Professional Development Session.
Mr Midoro will prepare report summarizing his findings and containing recommendations to facilitate further State Programme development on ICT application in education of the Azerbaijan Republic.