E-Learning Policy to Transform Russian Schools

Isak Froumin, Mary Canning, Kirill Vasiliev

The World Bank

Main question:

  Could we develop an efficient and effective e-Education strategy to justify investment into e-Education?

Rationale for the report:

TA for Russian e-Education strategy

Background for e-Learning Support Project

Methodology:

Study of ICT related programs and regulatory documents;Comparative analysis of Russian and international experience in area of e-Education;Data collection on issues of equity and quality of education (including sociological survey);Case-studies of e-Education development in two regions (including district and school levels);Interviews and brainstormings with stakeholders.

Process:

Consultations with the client and professional community;Regional visits and sociological surveys;Discussion of the PN and international experience at an international workshop;Delivery to the client and getting a request for the report;Additional data collection.

Context – Russian system of general and initial vocational education

Russia: 89 regions, 11 time zones

 

General Education 2001/2002

Urban area Rural area TotalTotal number of schools 19,422 44,248 63,670

31% 69% 100%Total number of students 12,908,794 5,780,083 18,688,877

69% 31% 100%Total number of teachers 880,000 638,300 1,518,300

58% 42% 100%

Context – Russian system of general and initial vocational education

Initial Vocational Education

1985 1990 1995 2000Total number of initial vocational institutions 4,196 4,328 4,166 3,893Total number of students entering initial vocational institutions (thousand) 1,527 1,266 1,120 1,213

Context – legacy

Pioneering efforts in 60’s;Teaching programming;Computerization in 80’s;Public awareness.

Context – current situation

Student per computer ratio 2002: Russia – 1132000: Kazakhstan – 622000: Czech Republic – 15 2000: Hungary – 9

Context – current situation

Computers connected to Internet (2002)Russia – 6% (dial-up)Finland – over 90% (high bandwidth)Estonia – over 99% (including 75% with high bandwidth)

Context – current situation

ICT trained teachers (2002)Russia – less then 10%Kazakhstan – over 80%

Context – current situation

Higher education has most;Growing regional disparity;Weak communication infrastructure;Lack of financing

Context – current situation President’s initiatives (2000-2002)56,000 computers for rural schools, 75,000 computers for urban schoolsResult by 2003: 113 student per computer or total of

170,000 modern computersGovernment initiatives E-Education program for 2002–2005 cost R56 billion

(US$1.9 billion).E-Russia program for 2002–2010 cost R77.18 billion

(US$2.6 billion).

Context – current situation

Private sector initiatives:Soros Foundation $150 mln – Internet centers and portal;Yukos Oil Company - $50 mln – ICT related teacher

training Regional initiatives:Computers for schools – $1 bln in 2000-2002E-learning initiatives support – $300 mln in 2000-2002

Context – Main barriers

input orientation, instead of focus on usage and outputs;top-down approach and ignoring bottom level initiatives;

absence of mechanism for coordination of ICTE programs (efforts);

non-systemic design (focus on hardware).

Context – Main barriers

analysis and statistics;

study of international experience;

results and effectiveness monitoring system;

incentives for private sector to support the introduction of ICT into education

Absence of:

Other then ICT urgent needs

2001/2002Percentage of schools equipped with Informatics classrooms 47Percentage of schools requiring major overhaul 37Percentage of schools in accident condition 5Percentage of schools equipped with facilities of all types 52

Textbooks -?

Teachers -?

School buildings -?

Meaningful strategy – educational objectives of ICT introduction

ICT could improve:Equal access;Quality of teaching and learning;Skills appropriate for economy (ICT skills)

Meaningful strategy - Equal access

Increase in access to modern educational services for different groups of population and making educational opportunities equal

Equal access / Digital Divide – current situation

Gender:In high schools, among boys, 76.9 percent

are regular computer users and 37.4 are regular Internet users; among girls these figures are 53.3 percent and 18.8 percent.

Equal access / Digital Divide – current situation

Income 62.5 percent of high school students from

families with high income are regular computer users while only 35.9 percent of students from low- income families use computers regularly.

Equal access / Digital Divide – current situation

GeographyOnly 8 percent of Russians have ever surfed

the Internet. Only 3.6 percent of those use the Internet frequently. Less than 0.8 percent of the rural population are frequent Internet users.

40% of villages do not have telephone lines.

Equal access / Digital Divide – current situation

Trend of low reading test results among Russian students

0

0.1

0.2

0.3

0.4

1 11 21 31 41 51 61 71 81 91

Socio-economic status

Pro

ba

bil

ity

село

город

крупный город

мегаполис

Equal access – recommendations

Targeted support for disadvantaged populations

Distance education

Meaningful strategy – new quality ICT helps in:

Strengthening opportunities for independent students’ learningCreating possibilities for more flexible and adaptable learning pathways for individual useIncreasing access to unlimited information sourcesMaking a shift from a knowledge acquisition to a competitive to a knowledge processing and creation.

New quality – current situation Indices of Students' Learning Strategies (Memorization, Elaboration,

Cooperative and competitive), Compared with OECD Average 2000

-0.50 0.00 0.50 1.00

Czech

Republic

Hungary

Russia

Latvia

Index (see note)

Competitive learning

Co-operative learning

Elaboration

Memorisation

New quality – current situation

Mean Scores For Student Performance on the Combined PISA Scales, 2000

350

400

450

500

Cze

chR

epub

lic

Hun

gary

Pol

and

Rus

sian

Fed

erat

ion

Latv

ia

Hig

h H

Dco

untr

ies

Mea

n s

core

on

eac

h s

cale

Performance on the combinedreading literacy scale

Performance on the combinedscientif ic literacy scale

Performance on the combinedmathematical literacy scale

New quality – current situation

Computer use at school and level of reading literacy (15-year-olds), 2000 (%)

  % never using computer at school

% at Level 3+ reading literacy

BrazilMexicoRussiaLatviaHungaryCzech RepublicUSAAustraliaFinland

5748371910251386

223443435258616979

New quality – recommendations

New standards for teacher training

Investment in teaching methods development

Accessible learning resources: national portal and electronic library

Training of instructional designers

Support for innovative schools of “new pedagogy”

New quality – ICT skills

Preparing people for life and work in informational society by development of ICT skill.

ICT skills – current situation

Krasnoyarsk Students’ ICT skills (%) Student Can perform

simple operations on computer (%)

9th grade total 66.6

11th grade total 74.5

IVE total 41.2

ICT skills – current situation

Computer Literacy of IVE Students, 2001–2002

Have used a computer (50.1%)

Familiar with computer

technologies but never used a

computer (19.4%)

Use computers regulary (16.0%)

Not familiar with computer technologies

(14.5%)

ICT skills – recommendations

Common performance standards for ICT literacyDevelop modular training courses in advance ICT skills

Meaningful strategy – conclusion

A significant intervention into e-learning could play a catalyst role in education reform to make an education system more relevant and equitable.

How to create a coherent and outcome

oriented strategy for e-education program?

Support for bottom level initiatives and development of points of best experience

New indicators of success

Creation of a regulatory framework and a system of certification

How to create a coherent and outcome

oriented strategy for e-education program?

Federal support for Research and Development:

Software for managing education;

Software for learning and evaluation;

Essential electronic learning resources.

How to create a coherent and outcome

oriented strategy for e-education program?

within the education sector

Coordination of Programs(ICT in education map)

on Federal and regional levels

between social sectors (science, culture, health, education)

How to create an efficient strategy for e-education program?

providing universal service rather than universal access through local ICT centers

economy of scale

out-of-school computers (including home computers) as a resource

providing technical support and increasing the time hardware is used for learning

learning;

Local ICT centers:

computer and Internet clubs; access to hardware and Internet;

methodological and technical support for schools.

How to create an efficient strategy for e-education program?

Unresolved issues:

Home computers

Telecommunication solutions:

Home computers

More than 60 percent of students in big cities do not consider schools as a primary place for use of ICT.

In Moscow, 27.5 percent of the households have computers at home, compared with 2 percent of the rural population.

Home computers

Krasnoyarsk Region: Students with Home Computers (%)

%

8

40

29

24

26

13

7

0

10

20

30

40

50

3rd grade 9th grade 11th grade IVE

Urbanstudents

Ruralstudents

Home computers

Irkutsk Region: Use of a Home Computer for Educational Purpose (%)

0102030405060

Most of the time Occasionally Very rarely ornever

Urban area Rural area

%

Home computers – pro & contra

Pro: Rapidly growing resource;Vast opportunity for informal education in specific areas of interest;Motivated education.

Contra:Increasing digital divide Hard to control and manage the content of self education

Telecommunication solutions

Pro

Cheap trafficHigh speedControlled content

Contra

Limited communicationLimited access to informationSlow updating of resources

Local network – closed communication and resources delivery system within school, or town, or region.

e-Learning Support Project

$300 mln – APL to support Russian E-Education Program

As a result of the project schools would move to a level of ICT use in teaching and learning that would result in the efficient use of digital learning resources and tools necessary for full participation in a knowledge society; promote active and independent student learning; and encourage the flexible organization of learning.

As an outcome, the project will create enhanced, and labor market-relevant learning opportunities for students, regardless of their social status or of their geographical location.

e-Learning Support Project

Component One: New Generation Learning Materials

developing a regulatory framework for materials development and use;developing and distributing a range of critical and exemplar learning materials to introduce a reusable object oriented/constructivist design approach; testing materials that would focus on embedding ICT in teaching and learning practices.

e-Learning Support Project

Component Two: Teacher training in the educational use of ICT

the training of new and existing teachers and education managers in project regions in the use of ICT in education (using the teaching and learning materials developed in Component One); the development of Russian instructional design and development capacity in learning materials production.

e-Learning Support Project Component Three: Development of a Network of Interschool

Resource Centers in Project Regions The District interschool resource centers would provide a range of

services and materials forstrategic planning for effective use of ICT in education;teacher support and advisory services; dissemination of ICT in education practices; extending curriculum offerings in isolated regions by providing support for selected distance education services; extending to community and industry access to training in the use of ICT and the production of new resources computer maintenance in schools.

So it goes…!