The IT-Based Educational System (SEI - from Romanian "Sistem Educational Informatizat") implements the Romanian government's strategy in the field of ITC and computer assisted education. It supports the objectives of the education reform and conforms to the eEurope 2005 action plan developed by the European Union, also being part of the eLearning European initiative.

SEI is one of the projects in which the Romanian society proved consistency. From the 2001 start-up, SEI completed 3 phases in a unified manner, following a coherent strategy towards establishing ITC as standard learning tools.




Line of action: creating a critical mass of aptitudes and skills to use computers in teachers and school graduates.

All high-school graduates are already able to use a personal computer.



IT is used to support the administration, but most importantly to support the teaching and learning activities. Education is modernized by using new tools and methods, for forming skills and aptitudes, for comprehending and accumulation of knowledge, for evaluation of the education.



Remodelling the teaching system currently in use by introducing new teaching tools and methods for various subjects.




Each high-school in Romania currently has at least one IT educational platform for use in teaching and learning mathematics, biology, physics, chemistry, Romanian language, history etc. A platform is composed of:

• Technology: 25 workstations, server, printer, Internet (600 schools connected) etc.
• Software and multimedia educational content – the AEL software system for computer assisted learning. AeL has repeatedly received awards and is appreciated both in Romania and abroad (an example is the IST Prize nomination by the European Commision);
• Methodology;
• Training of teachers.

In 2005 began the fourth phase of the SEI program. The phase is projected to end in 2008 and includes:

• Supplying computers for the 3,228 IT-labs from middle schools
• Supplying 42 regional training centres for the continuing education of teachers
• Providing 1,000 schools with a computer and a printer for administrative use

(more info in: Hardware)



SEI promotes the use of IT in the classroom, directly experimented by pupils coordinated by their teacher. Besides the availability of technology in the school, we are talking about high levels of interactivity and direct, personal experimentation of phenomena and scientific theories by pupils.

Within SEI, there have already been distributed in all high-schools 16 dictionaries: explanatory, orthographic, synonyms, antonyms, Romanian-English-French etc.; encyclopedias and glossaries of terms, movies, art, poetry and theater: Encyclopedia Britannica – the concise edition etc.

530 multimedia lessons are available for 10 subjects – rigorously elaborated, considering psycho-pedagogical impact and curricula coverage.

During the fourth phase (2005-2008), 1,255 multimedia lessons will be created and distributed in all IT-labs from middle schools and high schools. The phase also includes the creation of multimedia lessons for teaching English, that cover all 8 years of primary-level education (children 6-14 years).

(more info in: eContent)



More than the problem of technology availability, an important risk was defined to be not using the computers. After more than 3 years of SEI, the activities of (life-ling) training of teachers, consolidating and establishing new technologies show solid results.

As part of delivering the platforms, 25000 teachers were trained in each high-school. Tens of training sessions for experts teachers and inspectors were held. All high-schools were included in information campaigns which included direct mailing, visual, audio and printed media. Contests and other activities for pupils and teachers were organized.

2 training courses were introduced in life-long learning curricula for teachers (general computer skills and using ITC in teaching). 206 teachers were trained and 7000 teachers each year are estimated to be trained in this system.

The result is that if in 2001 the academic world was rejecting the presence of high technology in the classroom a priori, in 2004 the teachers are personally and directly promoting ITC.

The teachers, the administration and the general public are actively requesting for supplementary resources, equipment, services, training, educational content.

A solid community of content authors is already in place and functioning, composed both of teachers and pupils, formed within the educational software contests such as SIVECO Cup, other software contests, thematic camps organized by or supported by MER.



SEI aims to organize the school and the institutional structures, the management of the teaching activities, coordination, tracking and monitoring of schools.

http://admitere.edu.ro/

Introduced in 2001, the project was a complete success, being awarded the "best practice" label by the European Commission in Bruxelles in 2001.

(more info in: National Computerized High-School Admission and Distribution)

http://www.portal.edu.ro/pls/portal30/url/page/EVALMAN

(more info in: Textbooks Evaluation)

http://titularizare.edu.ro/

The project offered support to create, centralize and publish 75000 vacant teacher positions (2004), centralize data including examination results for 45.000 candidates, computerized distribution of teachers in schools. The method proved to be correct, reliable and transparent.

(more info in: Teachers' Nomination Upon Vacant Positions)

http://bacalaureat.edu.ro/

All data regarding the 175.000 candidates was centralized during the examination. The examination documents were securely transmitted over the Internet for 80 examination centers.

(more info in: Baccalaureate)

http://portal.edu.ro/

National center for communication, promotion, technical support, the Portal has 40000 registered users and constitutes the most important and active educational community in Romania.