PARTICIPATION IN THE PRESS CONFERENCE ON COOPERATION RESULTS OF THE MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND SCIENCE OF UKRAINE AND USAID WITHIN “UKRAINIAN TRANSPARENT EDUCATION AND MANAGEMENT ALLIANCE” (UTEMA) PROJECT IMPLEMENTATION (KYIV, MARCH 4, 2019)
On March 4, 2019, a press conference on the occasion of the completion of the International Technical Assistance Project “Ukrainian Transparent Education and Management Alliance” (UTEMA), funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) during 2016-2019, was held at the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine.
Liliia Hrynevych – Minister of Education and Science of Ukraine, Roman Greba – Deputy Minister, Susan Fritz – Director of the United States Agency for International Development, Valeriy Bakal – Deputy Head of the State Agency for e-Governance of Ukraine, Mykhailo Shmelev – Regional Technical Director of Microsoft Ukraine, Andrii Lytvynchuk – Deputy Director (acting Director) of the State Scientific Institution “Institute of Educational Analytics” (hereinafter – SSI “IEA”) and Yarema Bachinsky – Director of the American Councils for International Education in Ukraine and others participated in the press conference.
The Minister delivered an opening speech, in which she thanked all who participated in the UTEMA Project implementation and emphasized the relevance and significance of this project for successful educational reforming in Ukraine. Thus, the implementation of this project helped the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine (hereinafter – MES) to improve education management system, increase transparency and accountability in this sphere and move to a new level of modern technological decision-making. In turn, Susan Fritz signified satisfaction with the level of cooperation with the MES, as it resulted in the creation of two e-systems that will enable reforms to be implemented more effectively in the education sector.
According to Valeriy Bakal, the implementation of e-governance is the crucial task for the State Agency for e-Governance in Ukraine and he is really pleased that the top authorities of the MES put the digitalization as one of the priority tasks for the MES.
Roman Greba drew attention to the complex preparation process that took place in the technical documentation development for the Electronic Document Management System (hereinafter – EDMS) according to the requirements of the MES, the open code for which was kindly provided by the Administration of the President of Ukraine in 2017. Despite all the difficulties in implementing this project, the MES can be proud of one of the best EDMS and, if necessary, is ready to share its achievements with other central executive authorities.
Mykhailo Shmelev expressed his optimism about the fact that Ukraine is moving in the same direction with the whole civilized world by using technological solutions based on licensed and certified software products from the IT business leaders. He mentioned, that Microsoft is always ready to help Ukraine and the MES, in particular, with modern IT solutions.
Yarema Bachinsky recalled about the long-term and fruitful cooperation of the American Councils with the MES, notably within the framework of financing by the United States Agency for International Development. He highlighted that the UTEMA project was successful, primarily, due to the well-coordinated work of the partners. The future plans based on the achievements of this Project prove its effectiveness and importance both for the managers of the educational sphere in Ukraine and for the progress of Ukraine towards its successful reformation.
Representatives of the SSI “IEA”, namely, Andrii Lytvynchuk, Deputy Director of the SSI “IEA”, Ph.D. in Economics and Alona Natorina, Head of the Higher Education Statistics and Analytics Department, Ph.D. in Economics, participated in the press conference. Andrii Lytvynchuk described the advantages of the Information System for the Collection and Analysis of Financial and Statistical Data on the Higher Education Institutions Activities. He noted that the main advantage is the possibility of creating static and dynamic reports for further analytical work, based on data from different e-systems of the higher education sector.
For the SSI “IEA” cooperation with the UTEMA Project became a backbone for the development of information support for educational analytics and statistics in the field of higher education, which in its turn can be the basis for the Ministry’s managerial decisions.
Thus, the press conference presented the results of the UTEMA Project, consisted of two stages:
1) Creation of the Electronic Document Management System for the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine
The primary goal of the EDMS is the creation for the employees of the MES (as of today it is 410 System users) favorable and comfortable conditions for working with documents, providing the opportunity for information exchange between the participants of the work processes, which will create an integrated electronic information document space within the framework of this executive authority.
In collaboration with Microsoft Ukraine and the SMART Business executive, on the basis of EDMS created in the Presidential Administration of Ukraine, the team took into account the differences between business processes of the MES and automated work with documents at all stages of their life cycle, such as: scanning, creating, registering (coding), transferring documents to employees, execution, control, record keeping and archival storage of the documents.
As part of the project, a server room has been equipped with relevant modern hardware and software equipment.
To create a comfortable communication system between employees of the MES and to ensure the development of the e-system, the following Microsoft software will be used in its work: Microsoft Windows Server, Microsoft System Center, Microsoft Exchange Server, Microsoft Sharepoint Server, Microsoft SQL Server, Microsoft Skype for Business. Furthermore, the corporate email service for the MES employees was introduced. Now the Ministry’s leadership will be able to use the mobile version of EDMS, which, for example, will enable the Minister to exercise her authority within EDMS outside the premises of the MES.
The MES is finalizing its efforts on information security from unauthorized access by the means of crypto security. In particular, the Integrated Information Security System (hereinafter – IISS) was created.
We expect EDMS introduction into commercial operation after obtaining a Certificate of compliance with the IISS standards at the end of March 2019.
2) Creation of the Information System for the Collection and Analysis of Financial and Statistical Data on the Higher Education Institutions Activities
To create a system for collecting, processing and storing financial and statistical data of the higher education sector that could provide reliable data for the SSI “IEA” the UTEMA Project has created an Information System for the Collection and Analysis of Financial and Statistical Data on the Activities of Higher Educational Institutions (hereinafter – the System). The System was developed within the framework of UTEMA Project. The System developer is LLC “FIRMA UKRTEKHPROM”.
This e-system integrates information from the databases of three electronic systems: Unified State Electronic Education Database (EDEBO), Automated System of the State Treasury Service of Ukraine “E-Reporting” and the Unified Information System “Science in Universities “All data is automatically obtained and updated on the basis of the main directory – the Register of the higher education institutions (hereinafter – HEIs) within the EDEBO.
The main tasks to be performed using the System are:
(i.) Collection of reliable, relevant, conclusive, financial and other data in accordance with the system of indicators approved by the MES.
(ii.) Formation of a data array of necessary financial and operational statistics in the context of the particular HEIs, educational levels, and specializations.
(iii.) Financial security analysis of the HEIs. Effectiveness analysis of the budget funds using.
(iv.) Planning expenses for higher education.
(v.) Analysis and decision-making on improving the availability and quality of higher education.
In the future, the System has the potential to expand its capabilities. By the decision of the MES data from other e-systems that receive information in the field of higher education can be integrated into this system. This will provide an opportunity to generate a wider range of analytics, useful for both education managers and other stakeholders.
As part of the activities of the SSI “IEA”, in 2019 it is planned to develop an Open DATA Portal, to which the Institute will add the data integrated by the e-system. This will provide stakeholders with open access to the data and analytics of the System.
It should be noted that the implementation of the UTEMA Project foresees the achievement of the following strategic goals:
- improving the IT infrastructure of the MES for the transparent e-governance introduction;
- EDMS implementation and information supporting the MES;
- development and testing of e-financial reporting system for the HIEs of Ukraine.
More detailed information is available on the official website of the Project: http://utema.org.ua
A video recording of the press conference can be found on the Facebook page of the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine: https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=287625551905511&id=589347414425174
Information and photo from Press Service of the MES