Moscow Becomes One of the World Leaders In Equipping Schools with Digital Infrastructure

The leading international consulting company Boston Consulting Group (BCG) highly appreciated Moscow digital education environment. It was recognized as one of the developed in the world with regards to performance, infrastructure equipment and uniqueness of digital services. This conclusion was reached by the experts as a result of a study of 11 comparable metropolitan cities in the world.

According to the data, Moscow is one of the world leaders in equipping schools with digital infrastructure. The digitalization of education in the city commenced with establishment of an infrastructure base and a digital environment for the educational process. This enabled to provide wide access to education. BCG's research has shown that the Moscow system has unique features. One of the largest school systems in the world has been created in the capital; the city is among the best in the international PISA ratings. It is also important that Moscow is heading towards development of the digital city of the future.

Since 2018, all schools in the capital have been equipped with interactive panels, Wi-Fi, laptops for teachers and other technical means. Along with Singapore and Tallinn, Moscow is one of the three leaders on the level of digital equipment in schools.

Important Educational Tools

The Moscow Electronic school (“MES”) — a unique digital educational environment,

has become the main tool for education digitalization. Such systems successfully operate in only four out of 10 comparable cities, namely Singapore, Toronto, Stockholm and Los Angeles. MES appeared in 2016, today it is an integral part of the capital education system. Here unique digital tools that are implemented throughout the entire cycle of the training system: tracking and adjusting trajectories, feedback and communication, assessment of results, goals and training plans, access to training materials, training tools were collected.

The next step was to provide the teacher with digital tools that make it possible to focus on the learning process using advanced pedagogical methods.

Now the system is developing in three directions at once. First, it allows students to gain knowledge at any time in a convenient place and format. Second, MES provides teachers with efficient teaching tools and becomes a platform for professional development. Third, the platform creates a digital environment for the educational process, increases efficiency of educational resources.

Development of the digital learning environment is gradually forming a young specialist being in demand in the city and country. After all, schoolchildren gain access to relevant knowledge that develops modern skills, including digital literacy, culture and Internet safety.

Moscow Education and Pandemic Challenges

The digital equipment of the capital educational institutions enabled to quickly rebuild the educational system during the coronavirus pandemic. The gradual transition to the distance format allowed to preserve the health of many schoolchildren and teachers.

During the pandemic, teachers and students had basic infrastructure resources or could get them in the first 1.5 months of transition to distance learning. 87 percent of teachers rated the equipment of the distance workplace as good or excellent. They took into account an availability of a computer, the Internet, a web camera and other technical means. Those who needed it were given 234 thousand devices.

Only last autumn during transition to distance learning, more than 7.5 million online lessons for students in grades 6-11 were held on the platform using the video-conferencing service on the MES platform. Over 600 thousand students and teachers take part in digital lessons.

Digital technologies do not replace and will never replace teachers, but only become their assistants in personalizing teaching and applying the best materials and practices.

The Moscow Electronic School project is being implemented by the Moscow Department of Education and Science in cooperation with the Department of Information Technologies. It was created in 2016. The MES library contains over 50 thousand lesson scenarios, about nine thousand video lessons, almost two thousand electronic teaching aids, 348 textbooks, about 140 thousand educational interactive applications, 11 unique laboratories, and 245 works of fiction.

Since last year, access to the service has been open to users all over the world. MES has been repeatedly presented at world forums such as BETT and AQDAR. And in 2018–2019, at the HundrED educational summit in Helsinki (Finland), it was included in the list of 100 major educational projects in the world.