Deer Leap Programme

The Deer Leap Programme was launched in 2005 by the Ministry of Education and Science of Georgia as a national programme for integrating ICT into teaching and learning in Georgian schools. The aim of the Program was defined to facilitate the modernization of the education system in Georgia by creating a country-wide school-based ICT infrastructure and building capacity in modern information technology. The Deer Leap was approved to be a three-year programme (2005-2008) with a strong prospective of at least one more 4- year extension phase. Prior to Deer Leap program (data from 2003/2004) Georgian schools possessed 2600 unequally distributed outdated computers. Internet connection was very rare with a very low speed (33kbps) and high cost (sometimes up to 20 times higher than in the EU). Informatics was a compulsory subject in all secondary schools, the content of this subject was programming– frequently taught without computers. ICT was rarely used in other subjects and in school management.

After the needs assessment Deer Leap initial phase (2005-2008) was established to provide:

• access to computers and Internet in each school;
• availability of educational software and services;
• availability and quality of technical support;
• ICT skills of teachers and students;
• integration of ICT into curriculum;
• integration of Education Management Information System on school, district and national levels.

During the three-year period (2005-2008), the programme has been financed mainly from the state budget (36,7 MGEL), with additional support from private sponsors (7,8 MUSD).

By the end of 2008 the main achievements of Deer Leap programme were as follows:

Development of ICT infrastructure in schools: more than 26 520 new computers were provided to schools, increasing the average pupil/computer ratio from 250 to 22. All computers were equipped with Linux operating system and a set of open-source software applications. Internet connectivity was provided to more than 300 schools so that 60% of all primary and secondary pupils have access to Internet at school. Web-based collaboration environment for educational projects was developed and integrated with LeMill.net portal in order to support authoring and sharing the learning objects.

Teacher training: introductory-level computer literacy courses for teachers were developed and implemented nationwide, 21 540 teachers (out of 70 000) have passed these courses.

Digital learning resources: 310 Web-based learning resources have been developed for literature studies, music and art; 70 Web-based school journals have been published, 70 Web sites have been produced by pupils under social sciences project ‚My Environment‘. Georgian teachers have contributed 173 digital learning resources to the largest international educational repository LeMill.net.

Administration and support: most of the schools have hired IT managers.

Educational projects: Deer Leap Foundation has conducted several successful projects on the national level for integrating ICT into teaching and learning. In addition, schools have participated in international projects of iEARN and Global Gateway. Some collaborative learning projects have been carried out between Georgian and Estonian schools.

My First Computer program: 8 158 laptops have been provided for excellent pupils under presidential programme “My First Computer”

An action plan for 2009-2012 was also provided but the programme has been now scrapped.

---

> Georgia
> Transcaucasia
> Eastern Europe

>> VISCED