24-10-16 Nikos Filis salutes students who win digital education e-Twinning awards
Education, Research and Religious Affairs Minister Nikos Filis outlined Greece’s strides and planned growth of digital education in awarding winners of the 11th National eTwinning competition.
As its website states, eTwinning is a community of European schools that offers a platform for educational staff (teachers, head teachers, librarians, etc.) for participating European schools to communicate, collaborate, develop projects, and share in a cross-border digital learning community.
Filis said that incorporating new technologies and offering digital support in primary and secondary schools nationwide is a top priority for the ministry. The ministry’s agenda in this context entails development of infrastructure and services, developing educational software and content, training teachers, and supporting the educational community with programmes such as eTwinning, which includes joint cooperative projects Europe-wide (but also with non-European nations as well).
Over 18,000 educators from Greece are registered in the eTwinning programme (out of an overall total of 410,000 educators from 160,000 schools).
The eTwinning programme in Greece is supported by a network of 29 volunteer educators , known as ambassadors, who this year trained over 3,000 teachers in using digital tools in cooperative projects.
Filis said the programme bolsters the sense of being a European citizen, with respect for human rights, toleration, equality, democracy and free expression.
To that end, the ministry established the 2015-2016 eTwinning award, regarding the concepts of citizenship and toleration, and is now organising an international seminar on Migration and Tolerance, with teachers from Greece, France, Italy and the UK , to be held in Vrahati, near Corinth, between 17-19 November.
For the next school year, there are plans to expand the programme to include refugee students in Greece, so that they may communicate with fellow students from all over Europe.
