DIGITAL COMPETENCE TRAINING IN UKRAINE: THE DCOMFRA PROJECT EXPERIENCE

Kyiv National University of Culture and Arts as part of a consortium of universities implements the EU Erasmus+ project № 598236-EPP-1-2018-1-LT-EPPKA2-CBHE-SP "Digital competence framework for Ukrainian teachers and other citizens (dComFra)". The consortium includes 5 European partners (universities from Lithuania, Austria, Poland, Romania, and the Czech Republic) and 7 Ukrainian higher education institutions, 2 public organizations, and the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine.The purpose of the project - development of the national structure of digital competencies, its harmonization with European initiatives, in particular with the European digital competence framework, raising the level of digital competencies of Ukrainian citizens, including the target groups of the project: teachers, internally displaced persons and veterans of hostilities in eastern Ukraine. The project aims to establish the national digital platform for promoting the implementation of the Concepts of development of the digital economy of Ukraine and the digitalization of education through innovative initiatives that meet the requirements of the digital society and European standards.One of the stages of the project was Visiting Studies of Partners universities in Program Countries and trainings for exchange of “the best practices” in the development of digital competencies (DC). The goal is to prepare future teachers who will have the knowledge to teach DC, create learning materials and courses, and have skills in using the facilities of DC offices.The workshops were organized in a frame of the project in all UA universities. The set of workshops and trainings was launched in 2 rounds. In the first round, EU organizations were training UA HEI teaching staff. The trainings were organized in all Ukrainian partner universities. Taking into account the situation resulting from the quarantine, it was decided to conduct online training for all partners of the consortium. Therefore, all Program Country organizations provided workshops with each on aspects of DC teaching and workshop for the EU national digital coalitions’ experience.When the EU pieces of training had finished, the second round of trainings inside UA partners universities started where UA teachers delivered obtained knowledge to their colleagues in-house. The UA HEIs set up 7 workshops in this round. The evaluation was conducted by a survey of the trained university teachers at the end of each workshop. The results of the performed evaluation of the participants’ experiences are summarized in this paper.The “best practices” gained during the project was taken into account in the development of project resources - e-platform, training materials, model of learning digital competencies of the target groups of the dComFra project. The members of the consortium are directly involved in the formation of policy for the digital competencies development in Ukraine in the framework of working groups at the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine, the Ministry of Digital Transformation. The experience gained from European partners and the results of the survey of participants help to apply European approaches to the development of digital literacy of the population, considering the Ukrainian realities.