Access to ICT in the Education System

The adoption by Romania of the eEurope+ represents, among others, an engagement to adopt important measures regarding the increase of access to ICT in the education system. Some of the specific actions assumed recommended by the eEurope+ program and assumed by Romania refer to: stimulating the use of Internet in the institutions of the education system, ensuring cheaper and faster Internet acess for researchers and students, as well as supporting all Romanians to participate and work in the knowledge-based economy. Some of the concret mesures to be undertaken in order to achieve these objectives refer to:

„ Working towards upgrading national research networks to ensure that researchers and students benefit from powerful networks;

„ Establishment of high speed Internet access and Intranets in universities and making available research networks, where appropriate, for use by schools, museums and libraries;

Additionally, in response to the eLearning⁹ initiative undertaken by EU countries, the Candidate Countries established measurable, specific objectives to be attained by 2003, some of which are mentioned below:

„ Provide all schools with convenient access for teachers and students to the Internet and multimedia resources;

„ Ensure availability of support services and educational resources on the Internet, as well as e-lerning platforms, for teachers, pupils and parents;

„ Provide trainig for all teachers, in particular adapt teacher curricula and offer incentives to teachers to use and apply new technologies for developing innovative, practical teaching methods;

8Source: http://www.cisco.com/global/RO/edu/CNAP_Romania_home.shtml

9 Initiative undertaken by the EU countries at the European Council in Lisbon in March 2000. The initiative identifies 4 priority lines of action for introducing the education systems into the Information Society:

improvement of infrastructures and equipment, a training drive at all levels, development of quality content and services, and cooperation and dialog among the schools in Europe.

„ Ensure that pupils have the possibility to be digitally literate by the time they leave school;

„ Give the labour force the chance to become digitally literate through life-long learning;

„ Significantly increase IT training places and courses;

„ Encourage the dissemination of a European diploma for basic IT skills;

„ Set up public Internet access points in public spaces etc.

Currently, the total number of education istitutions connected to the Internet of the total number of such institutions is as follows:

Table 12. Total No. of Connected Educational Institutions Education

institutions

connected to the Internet

Total number of education

istitutions

% of education institutions connected to the Internet from the total number of education institutions

County inspectorates

47 47 100%

Universities 75 75 100%

High-schools 927 1,365 68%

Schools 1243 12,627 9.8%

Source: the Ministry of Education, Research and Youth (latest statistics)

Additionally, the eEurope and eEurope+ programs recommends that Memeber and Candidate State quantify a set of indicators that can be considered relevant in the process of assessing the access of the educational system to ICT (at each educational level), follows: number of computers per 100 pupils, number of computers connected to the Internet per 100, number of computers with high speed connections to the Internet per 100 pupils. The current level of these indicators in Romania are described in the following table:

Table 13. No of computers/100 students and no. of connected computers/100 students

University High-school School

Number of computers per 100 students

16.7 11 Estimated to be over 2

Number of computers connected to the Internet pe 100 students

12 7.5 Estimated to be over 1

Source: The Ministry of Education, Research and Youth (latest statistics)

Although during the last 2 years, the pace of endowing educational institutions in Romania with ICT infrastructure has recorded a significant increase – currently there are 175,000 PC units reported for the Romanian educational institutions, as compared to 38,000 units in 2001 (according to WB statistics) – the current level of ICT infrastrucure penetration in Romanian schools has only reached a value comparable to the 2001 level of this indicator in CEE countries

9.4.1 ELearning

ELearning is a teaching method that combines learning with modern technology to facilitate the learning process. It generally involves the delivery of learning and training using

electronic media, such as computers, the Internet and intranets, with learning materials accessed from the Web or from a CD via a computer. Typically, tutors and learners communicate with each other using e-mail or discussion forums. Practically, one of the most widely spread forms of eLearning is distance learning.

During the past years, eLearning has also been developing in Romania, as there are currently a number of functional applications in the field, as follows:

„ The Virtual Business University (Universitatea Virtuala de Afaceri), available over the Internet at www.uva.ro - an application developed by the National School of Political and Administrative Studies;

„ www.academiaonline.ro - an eLearning portal build in partnership by the Institute of Educational Sciences, InsideMedia SRL and the Association for Career Excellecy.

Moreover, many higher education institutions have already adapted to the new tendencies of eLearning by having opened distance learning centres in the towns and cities where such courses could be organized in an appropriate manner. An example in this field is represented by the Academy of Economic Studies in Bucharest (www.ase.ro) that has already 17,000 students enrolled in Open Economic Distance Learning, which is present in 17 towns and cities.