On November 23 the Ministry of Education and Science and the IT-company EPAM Ukraine signed a Memorandum of Cooperation in the field of educational technologies development. The Memorandum provides for the exchange of information and experience, participation in the events contributing to the reform of education and science, assistance in improving the quality of education by way of implementation of digital solutions.
Elimination of impediments in education and overcoming digital inequality are of significant priority today for joint efforts of government and business. The problem of digital inequality is global. It became especially noticeable in Ukraine during the pandemic and the transition of educational institutions to distance learning. At the beginning of the year, the Education Quality State Service conducted an online survey regarding the organization of distance learning in schools in the 2020/2021 school year. 22% of respondents mentioned the low quality of Internet connection as an obstacle to the educational process. Besides, 8.8% of parents informed that their families did not have a computer. 53% of teachers reported technical problems.
EPAM is joining the effort to create equal opportunities to access education in the rural area. The first project of such kind is going to be assistance with technical equipment of schools in the areas where the company has offices. The local authorities are to decide, depending on the urgency of the needs, which schools receive the equipment. By the end of the year, up to 100 units of computer equipment – desktop computers and laptops – will be donated to rural schools. The first lot is going to satisfy the needs of schools in the Khmelnytsky region. Other regions will follow. Caritas Ukraine International Charitable Foundation will act as a partner in the transfer of equipment to educational institutions.
“Supporting youth and development of education is one of the key areas of sustainable development. Every year, EPAM invests in the development of education, supports partnership projects and creates its own. Responding to the challenges of time, considering the rapid transition to distance learning, we must help Ukraine’s educational system to be modern, in terms of use of digital tools and solutions. And we should also make sure that these tools are available for all Members in the educational process,” – comments Serhiy Rozhok, Executive Director of EPAM Ukraine.
“Every day we work to make the educational environment modern, motivating and digital. Today it is difficult to imagine the implementation of many processes, tasks without a modern gadget, and education is no exception. We have already started providing school teachers with laptops in the course of the project “Laptop for every teacher”. However, we don’t intend to stop there and continue looking for partners, some socially responsible businesses that can join us in helping schools and education in general. We are grateful to our partners – EPAM Ukraine for their readiness to support the digital transformation of education,” said Artur Seletsky, Deputy Minister for Digital Development, Digital Transformations and Digitalization.