On 20 April 2016, at the Moscow International Education Fair of Education – 2016, UNESCO Institute for Information Technologies in Education (IITE) and one of the leaders in the market of corporate applications, SAP company signed Partnership Agreementin the field of dissemination of knowledge and best ICT practices. The goal of joint programmes is to prepare and implement courses on the digital economy, provide knowledge about modern technologies available everywhere, including rural areas and remote regions, up to the Arctic and polar regions, facilitate training of people with disabilities and special needs, develop social entrepreneurship. The signing ceremony was held with participation of Mr. Qian Tang, Assistant Director-General for Education at UNESCO and Mr. Veniamin Kaganov, Deputy Minister of Education and Science of the Russian Federation.
UNESCO IITE and SAP will commence disseminating and developing training courses and training digital economic courses for schools, colleges and universities with the use of SAP’s global expertise and UNESCO IITE’s methodological support. All courses and materials will be available for schools and UNESCO Chairs as well as other educational institutions. The project provides for the development of ICT competency framework programmes for educators at different levels by means of e-learning tools and educational resources developed by SAP and UNESCO IITE. SAP will also take part in the creation of multivendor Education Technology Innovation Center (ETIC), where innovations and SAP expertise in the area of the Internet of Things – one of the main technologic trends of coming years – will be presented. The courses will be held under the auspice of SAP University Alliance programme, including the world’s leading universities.
“Cooperation with SAP, which has broad expertise in the sphere of developing and application of innovative technologies, will enable us to pool our efforts and experience to meet challenges to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all, based on ICT applications, which fully corresponds with the Sustainable Development Goal 4 on Education. Therefore, it enables new opportunities for sharing best practices in the context of digital economic and developing inclusive knowledge societies, bridging the digital divide and developing innovative educational ecosystem in Russia, CIS and other state-members of UNESCO” – said Head a.i. of the UNESCO IITE prof. Alexander Khoroshilov.
