ICT COMPETENCE FOR SECONDARY SCHOOL TEACHERS AND STUDENTS IN THE CONTEXT OF EDUCATION INFORMATIZATION: GLOBAL EXPERIENCE AND CHALLENGES FOR UKRAINE

Abstract

The paper is focused on the role of ICT education as a key component in the education systems in EU, USA and Ukraine. The research results show that the use of ICT in education and training has been a priority in most European countries during the last decade. It has been determined that the possession of ICT-competency has been proclaimed an important component of successful schooling and lifelong learning, further professional development, effective management of the learning process, and the use of ICT in learning activities in a modern digital society. It has been revealed that in the European countries, the standards of ICT-competency are developed and implemented at all levels of education, the systems of mandatory monitoring and certification of ICT-competency of students, teachers and heads of general educational institutions are in operation. Results show that teachers mainly focus on the development of technical ICT skills, whereas the ICT curriculum centres on the integrated use of ICT within the learning and teaching process. Analysis of foreign experience on modern approaches to the assessment has shown that the assessment of the pupils’ ICT competency in Ukraine is extremely important in the context of modern reforms, since in Ukraine standards for assessing ICT-competency are valid only within the subject “Informatics” at the level of secondary school, while the worldwide tendency is the end-to-end using of assessment tools for students' ICT-competency. Inference should be drawn that building digital competence by embedding and learning ICT should start as early as possible, i.e. in primary education, by learning to use digital tools critically, confidently and creatively, with attention paid to security, safety, and privacy. Teachers need to be equipped with the digital competence themselves, in order to support this process. The authors of the paper made conclusion about the necessity for Ukraine both to study the progressive European experience and to synchronize the education policy in ICT-education with the strategies of the EU and the member states.