UNESCO IITE took part in the Central Asia Symposium on ICT in Education (CASIE-2015)

The Central Asia Symposium on ICT in Education (CASIE) has been organized by UNESCO Asia and the Pacific Regional Bureau for Education since 2011. It has served as a sub-regional platform for the Member States to collectively deliberate on possible solutions to the issues at hand, with a particular focus on integrating technologies into the education systems. This year, to sustain this sub-regional momentum, UNESCO Bangkok in collaboration with the Korea Education and Research Information Service (KERIS), UNESCO Almaty Regional Office, UNESCO Institute for Information Technologies in Education (IITE), and National Commission for UNESCO of the Kyrgyz Republic held CASIE in Bishkek, Kyrgyz Republic, on 7-9 July. Building on the discussions from the previous year’s symposium, CASIE 2015 “Fostering an Enabling Environment for Teacher Innovation: From Policy to Practice” continued to examine policies, strategies, and initiatives to address the growing need for systematic teacher education and professional development in Central Asia as well as for the effective integration of ICT in teaching and learning.

The CASIE-2015 was attended by nearly 70 participants from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. The list of participants included the Minister and Vice-Minister of Education of Kyrgyzstan, staff from UNESCO Bangkok, UNESCO Tashkent, UNESCO Almaty Regional Office, IITE, Kyrgyz National Commission, KERIS, private foundations and IT partners.

IITE was represented by its Officer-in-Charge Prof. Alexander Khoroshilov who participated in all events within the framework of CASIE-2015, including chairing the Plenary Session “Digital resources for teachers”. As a chair, he delivered a short presentation on the key issues and challenges of ICT in education and new pedagogy in the context of the concept of a school of the future, key competencies of the inclusive knowledge society, teacher ICT competency and the use of OER, interconnection between teachers and students in new learning environments, need to find a compromise between traditional books and e-Books, necessities to change mentality of teachers in the framework of the development of new learning environments based on the pedagogy paradigm of personalized education and a new model of the organization of learning process. Prof. Alexander Khoroshilov participated in all key discussions including the summary where recommendations to the next CASIE-2016 were defined.

The participants from Central Asian countries expressed their interest for cooperation with IITE, especially regarding the need of IITE support in the field of development of a new generation of multimedia training courses and e-Textbooks both in Russian and national languages as well as the implementation of joint activities with IITE partners from the private sector. Representatives of National Commissions for UNESCO and ASPnet schools confirmed their interest for scaling-up the LFF project both at the national and international levels including its integration with other projects of IITE and its partners. Several meetings with the participants of the symposium were held. A special meeting was organized with a Director of UNESCO Bangkok Mr. G.J. Kim who discussed with IITE the new directions of collaboration. The interest for closer cooperation with IITE was expressed by UNESCO Bangkok, KERIS, Intel- Ukraine/CIS and the "Roza Otunbayeva Initiative" International Public Foundation.

For more information about the CASIE 2015 please visit the website of UNESCO Asia and the Pacific Regional Bureau for Education.