Cabinet of Ministers plans to provide more than 60,000 teachers with laptops for UAH 980 million in subventions

This year, the Ministry of Education and Science plans to provide laptops to more than 60,000 teachers; the state budget provides UAH 1 billion to combat COVID-19 and its consequences during the educational process in secondary schools, in particular, UAH 980 million is allocated for the purchase of laptops.

The press service of the Ministry of Digital Transformation announced this, Rubryka reports.

"Thanks to this subvention, teachers will be able to make the learning process more modern and accessible. The pandemic has changed the educational process; lessons have been transferred from classrooms to zoom conferences. However, unfortunately, not all teachers have the technical ability to teach children in this format," the ministry states.

"Already this year, we'll provide more than 60,000 teachers with quality equipment. This initiative is now one of the priorities, which we're working on together with the Ministry of Education and Science. We continue to digitize the educational sphere.

E-journals and diaries, online conferences, classroom presentations are the future of education. Our goal is to make sure that every teacher has their own personal computer, access to high-speed Internet, and even more opportunities for children to learn," Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Digital Transformation Mykhailo Fedorov said.

"The order of the Ministry of Education and Science stipulates the requirements for equipment. This is a guarantee that the computers will be of high quality.

Taking into account co-financing and the expected cost of a laptop of UAH 20,000, it's planned to purchase more than 60,000 laptops under this subvention. This cost is calculated based on the results of consultations with vendors and after the market analysis," the Ministry of Digital Transformation explained.

"All the initiatives we implement in the digitalization of education are aimed at organizing a proper educational process in a pandemic. Teachers must be able to use modern gadgets in their daily work. MES pays considerable attention to timely and comprehensive methodological support for teachers' new digital skills.

This year, together we managed to provide targeted funds in the state budget to support our teachers. We're currently expecting areas of coordinated procurement procedures to help teachers get laptops faster. To this end, the Ministry of Education and Science and the Ministry of Digital Transformation have prepared a letter of explanation for the regions, which clearly describes how to implement this subvention," Minister of Education and Science Serhii Shkarlet said.

In April, a resolution was adopted, which defines the procedure and conditions for distributing the subvention. It will be possible to use the subvention based on co-financing:

• 70% at the expense of the subvention, 30% at the expense of local budgets for the city of Kyiv, regional budgets and budgets of territorial communities, where the population is over 40 thousand people;
• 90% at the expense of the subvention, 10% at the expense of local budgets for urban territorial communities, where the population is less than 40 thousand people;
• 95% at the expense of the subvention, 5% at the expense of local budgets for villages, settlements, mountain settlements, and cities on the line of contact.

Computers will be purchased in 24 regions and the city of Kyiv.

The process can be tracked with a special dashboard.