Ministry of Education and Science of Latvia and Google agree on cooperation in teacher education in digital pedagogy
On Wednesday 20 September, the Ministry of Education and Science of Latvia signed a Memorandum with Baltic Information Technology, a partner of Google Cloud, on cooperation and knowledge transfer for the use of the “Google for Education” environment in education and teacher training in digital pedagogy.
The Memorandum was signed by Anda Caksa, Minister of Education and Science and by Harijs Gals, member of the board of Baltic Information Technology, in the presence of Pawel Czerwony, head of Education in Google - Central and Eastern Europe.
“I see as the main benefit of working together with Google an opportunity to develop digital pedagogy. The use of Google tools and solutions could be integrated into the adaptive learning process, taking into account the strengths, needs and pace of work of each student", said Minister of Education and Science Anda Caksa.
The cooperation with Google and its partner Baltic Information Technology provides support for the configuration and use of the domains of Chromebook laptops purchased by the Ministry of Education and Science in schools, as well as the training of educators and computer system administrators to work on Google products. In addition, educators will learn about the protection of personal data. This cooperation will enable students to learn how to use different digital ecosystems and benefit from each system.
"Latvian schools will receive not only Chromebook laptops, but also the provided added value – software specifically suited to the learning process," Harijs Gals explained.
"Google for education" - transforming schools
Chromebooks are used by more than 50 million students and educators worldwide for learning, and Google for Education has more than 170 million users. In Latvia, 8.000 students from 8 universities actively use this environment every day, in actuality reaching 45.000+ users.
“The Memorandum includes long-term cooperation and describes the support that Google is ready to provide to teachers, students and school administration. We are ready not only to provide initial start-up assistance in the Google digital ecosystem, but also to continue to offer new technologies to schools and the education system as a whole for more efficient work, including artificial intelligence solutions,” said Pawel Czerwony.
In September 2023, the Ministry of Education and Science started supplying Chromebooks to municipalities throughout Latvia. In three delivery stages, 35.791 Chromebooks are expected to be delivered to municipalities by the end of the year.
@IZM