The Fourteenth session of the IITE Governing Board was held in Moscow at the Marriot Courtyard Hotel on 13-14 September 2013. Director-General of UNESCO was represented by Mr. Svein Osttveit, UNESCO Director of the Executive Office of Education Sector (EO/ED). Also the guests of honour attended the session: Mr. Amir Bilaletdinov, Deputy Secretary-General of the Commission of the Russian Federation for UNESCO and Dr. Evgeniy Ugrinovich, Head of the International Department of the Ministry of Education and Sciences of the Russian Federation.
As a pre-Session event on 12 September 2013 a meeting of Mr. D. Badarch, IITE Director a.i., Mr. S. Osttveit, UNESCO Dir/ED/EO, and Prof. A. Khoroshilov, IITE National Programme Officer with Mr. Veniamin Kaganov, Deputy Minister of Education and Sciences of the Russian Federation was held in the Ministry of Education and Sciences where the different issues of cooperation and interconnections between IITE and Russian MoES were discussed.
At the beginning of IITE GB Session was opened and moderated by IITE GB Chairman Prof. Bernard Cornu, Mr. Svein Osttveit, UNESCO Dir/ED/EO has informed the IITE GB members regarding the current situation in UNESCO and plans for the future and Mr. Amir Bilaletdinov presented the welcome speech by Mr. Gennady Gatilov, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, who convinced that the IITE experience, particularly in elaborating electronic educational platforms, will be widely in demand both in Russia and in many UNESCO Member States. In his letter Mr. G. Gatilov also underlined that IITE, being successfully proactive in the areas of its competence, for several years has been successfully uniting UNESCO Chairs working in the field of ICT in education. Recently IITE has focused on one more UNESCO network – Associated Schools. A joint pilot project of IITE and UNESCO Associated Schools “Learning For the Future” (LFF) has been launched which allows to shape united information and educational environment in 42 UNESCO Associated Schools from 14 countries. Finalizing his statement Mr. G. Gatilov expressed hope that the geography of the project’s participants will expand.
At the working sessions members of the Governing Board and other participants have discussed the report by the Director a.i. on the activities of the Institute during 2012-2013, Medium-Term Strategy of the Institute for 2014-2017, IITE Programme and Budget for 2014-2015, information on decisions of the UNESCO Executive Board on internal evaluation of category I institutes, including IITE, and IITE Improvement plan. On the last day of the session the Board members have presented their recommendations and decisions of the session.
In the framework of agenda of the IITE Governing Board session a high level meeting in the form of round table was organized in the Ministry of Education and Sciences of the Russian Federation. At this event IITE was represented by its Governing Board, Director a.i. and key staff. The Ministry of Education and Sciences was presented by Mr. V. Kaganov, Deputy Minister, Dr. E. Ugrinovich, Head of International Department, heads and deputy heads of key departments of the MoES. Mr. S. Osttveit, UNESCO Dir/ED/EO, Mr. A. Bilaletdinov, Deputy Secretary-General of the Commission of the Russian Federation for UNESCO as well as vice-rectors and representatives of the Russian Universities took part in the discussion of possible directions of further cooperation between IITE, MoES and Russian educational institutions.