Report on Smart Education in the Republic of Serbia

Abstract

Traditional teaching is well known by frontal form of work with remarkable teaching function, which does not provide sufficient interaction with the students. They do not leave enough time for independent student’s activities in the qualitative function of learning. In the last ten years, there was strong will to develop and improve didactic media, teaching methods and forms in function of raising the efficiency and effectiveness of the teaching process. The current teaching organization is created as a comprehensive cognitive system. As a rule, feedback is lacking. After class, completion students do not know how they successfully overcame the curricula or teacher has full knowledge picture of their students. Feedback should follow the course not every step of the teaching process in which current practice is the case. Teaching is more based on the entropic than systematic approach. One reason for this situation is poor didactic-technical environment in which teaching takes place. The process of modernization of existing technologies is taking place much faster in production areas and is rightly expected that schools and faculties follow the innovative processes and to educate young professionals in accordance with the needs of society and economy. It is generally thought that schools do not have sufficient number of modern teaching aids, that the best selection of the available ones is not done, that they are not used in teaching according to requirements fixed by modern teaching theory, and that, therefore, we cannot expect faster advancement of teaching. Pedagogical, psychological, and methodical culture of teachers is not on the level, which would make them possible to know more fundamental pedagogical function of teaching aids, ways, and manners of their programming, to notice their abilities and limitations, learn how to use them and use them efficiently in teaching process and free activities of pupils. In addition, space and other conditions in schools often do not allow everyday application of available teaching aids, and financial limitations do not allow completion of teaching aids fund with those that are of newer date, more usable, and pedagogically more efficient. Serbian Government has engaged with significant changes and policy reforms in the education system, focusing on improving the quality, equity, and efficiency dimensions of education. However, despite some progress, the quality, equity, and relevance of education and training do not fully meet labor market needs, and the question of inequality in education remains a challenge in the country. In terms of learning quality, UNICEF calculations show that, among the nine countries included in this study, Serbia has some of the lowest percentages of children and adolescents who do not achieve minimum proficiency in foundational skills. According to UNICEF estimates, approximately 1 in 3 students (37.2%) do not achieve minimum proficiency, leading to cumulative learning and skills gaps across the course of their lives. UNESCO data nevertheless show that the literacy rate for the 15–24 years age group in Serbia is 99.7%, yet it is important to note that definitions for literacy and standards for proficiency vary drastically. Regarding broadband development in the country, ITU data show that 78.4% of individuals in Serbia used the Internet in 2020. One of its key objectives is to “establish foundations for the development of digital education at the pre-university level”. More specifically regarding the development of digital pre-university education, the focus will be on supporting institutions in pre-university education to improve not only the digital competencies of students, but also the digital competencies of education employees through the implementation and promotion of innovative approaches that include integrating ICTs into teaching and learning. During the implementation of the strategy, support will be provided to help schools organize hybrid and online teaching so that systemic measures can be taken. In addition, a set of indicators for the long-term monitoring of digital education development will be defined, with the aim of establishing a system of continuous monitoring of the development of digital education. We made changes in publishing law few years ago, so each textbook must have electronic textbook supplement. Main idea is to enable individualization, differentiation, and interactivity. According to new concept of educational technology based on supervised learning and artificial intelligence, we hope that textbooks will have a database with students (pupils) achievements. Each task that student finish could be evaluated, so teacher will have whole picture of their work. We need also to be made permanent evaluation of eLearning systems and their development in accordance with the changes taking place in developed countries of the world and based on the experiences and attitudes of teachers and students in practice. Innovation management is very complex, because of teacher’s resistance due to insufficient information and capability and poor equipment in schools. Overcoming this problem involves active participation both teachers and school managers in seminars for teacher training. Faculty of teacher training in Belgrade in corporation with a company NetDragon Websoft is developing seminars for teachers based on new educational technology.