The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) ranked CARNET's pilot project, „e-Schools: Establishment of a Development System for digitally mature Schools,“ among the top 12 out of 143 projects from 79 countries worldwide in the area of applying ICT in education in 2017.
The award ceremony held today at the UNESCO headquarters in Paris was attended by Lidija Kralj, Assistant Minister of Science and Education, and Branka Vuk, Assistant Director of CARNET, as representatives of the „e-Schools“ project.
„The importance of technology in today’s world and society is unquestionable, and its application in education enables students in schools to use tools that surround them in everyday life. For many years now CARNET has worked on computerizing educational institutions and encouraged the use of ICT in learning and teaching through a series of courses, activities, and projects. The e-Schools project is the culmination of our efforts, and we are particularly proud of the fact that it has been recognized in tough global competition. We are actively preparing and looking forward to continuing this pilot project by including a greater number of schools to make a more powerful impact on the development of the Croatian education system,“ said Branka Vuk during today’s award ceremony, adding that this recognition was a testament to the quality of CARNET’s practices and models implemented in the pilot project „e-Schools“ and stating that the creative use of ICT in education is extremely important.
The 2005 „UNESCO King Hamad bin Isa Al-Khalifa“ Award recognizes innovative ways of using new technologies in education by providing access to quality education and lifelong learning. The award is funded by the Kingdom of Bahrain and is presented to individuals and organizations implementing excellent projects aimed at improving teaching and learning in the digital age.
As part of the award procedure, an international jury selects the top two projects and ten finalists, and each year there is a specific theme. The 2017 theme was „The usage of ICT for the purpose of a more comprehensive approach to quality education.“ Projects aimed at enabling high-quality education for socioeconomic groups in disadvantaged positions were evaluated separately.
Projekt je sufinancirala Europska unija iz europskih strukturnih i investicijskih fondova.