Professional trainings for informatics teachers from rural settlements of Kyrgyz Republic within the framework of the ITU Connect a School initiative are yearly organized by the ITU Area Office for CIS in cooperation with the Institute of Electronics and Telecommunication (IET) under Kyrgyz State Technical University (KSTU) named after Iskhak Razzakov starting 2012.
This year
, two 5-day courses were completed by 95 rural teachers (including 20 men and 75 women): a training course of 1st level on The Basic Principles of Information and Internet Technologies was completed by 82 informatics teachers (including 13 men and 69 women) from rural schools of Batken, Dzhalal Abad (on the photo), Issyk Kul, Naryn, and Chui Regions of Kyrgyz Republic, while a course of 3rd level covering the topic The Basic Principles of Algorithm Development, was completed by 13 school teachers (including 7 men and 6 women) from rural schools of Naryn Region of Kyrgyz Republic.
The trainings were conducted on the basis of the IET, in the multimedia classes, equipped with computers with unlimited Internet access.
To evaluate the knowledge level, the trainees were tested before and after the training course. The first test for 1st–level training participants showed that more than 95% of them were not acquainted with the programmes of elaboration of educational and supporting materials. While the final test was successfully passed by all training participants, of whom over 80% demonstrated a good level of knowledge. The quality indicator for all courses made 76%, while absolute measure for all four levels made 100%. (Results of the tests are available in the Report).
Referring to the feedback from the training participants, they are satisfied with a high level of knowledge provided, the practically useful content, which clarified them how to rationally organize the work in school classes and self-guided work of school children and demonstrated them one more time the prospective viability of their profession.
The participants expressed their gratitude to the training organizers, the International Telecommunication Union and the Institute of Electronics and Telecommunications, and their willingness to participate in the trainings of next levels.
The participants suggested to organize similar training courses on programming languages, internet programming technology (PHP, MySQL, Jscript, Apache etc.) and data bases, i.e. trainings of levels 3 and 4. Regional education centres request to organize trainings of 1st level for non-informatics teachers of rural schools, who are frequently not acquainted with modern methods of elaboration of educational and supporting materials for schoolchildren.
Although Kyrgyz schools are currently being broadly connected to the Internet, some problems are still not settled such as: some schools are still not equipped with computers or computers are outdated; some schools have no technical support; some schools are still not connected to the Internet; teachers are still not enough competent in ICT; child online protection is also one of pressing challenges. Therefore, Kyrgyz schools need: modernization of computer equipment; a broader connection to the Internet; raising computer skills of school teachers; elaboration of informatics teaching aids; and regular trainings in cybersecurity.
