E-learning expands to Crimean schools

The Estonian foreign office has pledged to donate €38,184 (£33,430) to aid the development of online training technology across schools in the Ukraine.

As part of a development cooperation project between the two countries, Estonia will provide the Crimean education sector with tools from its own thriving virtual learning environment portal Miksike.

Estonia's successful harnessing of e-learning technology has provided it with valuable experience which the Ukraine's education system can use, according to Estonia's foreign minister Urmas Paet.

He added: "Miksike is very popular in Estonia and adopting a similar interface in Ukrainian schools would make lessons there more diverse and exciting."

The project will help the Ukraine achieve goals laid out in UNESCO's Education for All (EFA) programme, while Mr Paet added that the opportunities the technology provided would ease teachers' workloads as well as "help [them] plan their day more productively".

According to the latest EFA report for Central and Eastern Europe, nearly three million people still lack basic literacy and numeracy skills, with the vast majority of those being women.