Abstract:

Effective education plays a fundamental role in the development of society. To satisfy the demands and requirements of society education is to prepare an optimal response in every respect. In fulfilling this educational mandate,professionalism of teachers is of central importance. Professionalism includes good knowledge and a confident handling of pedagogical-didactic methods for teaching professional competences and transferable and soft skills.

Central objectives of the MaCICT-project (“Modernisation of Master Curriculum in ICT for Enhancing Student Employability in Belarus”) were to improve ICT education to meet the labour market needs and to optimise employability and self-employability of master graduates.

The MaCICT project started with a detailed research and analysis of the needs of the labour market regarding the required ICT skills. This research provided an insight into the needs of ICT professionals in Belarus. Subsequent research into current teaching methods and practices in universities revealed a gap between university training of ICT specialists and the needs of companies. Based on that research, the ICT master degree study programmes were modernised by introducing new study modules and updating the existing ones.

The pedagogical-didactic knowledge of the teachers was analysed to identify their training needs. Based on that analysis, a training programme was designed and implemented to cover the needs in a targeted way. By doing so, the specific needs of the ICT sector were targeted so that both interdisciplinarity setting and teaching of transferable/soft skills were in the foreground.

The focal point of the project was the development of a new or updating of the existing MSc study programmes in the field of ICT at five Belarusian partner universities in five different regions in the country. Simultaneously, the project has a forward-looking and far-reaching goal of turning towards and gradual introduction of interactive education and students’ active learning through application of innovative pedagogical approaches and methods. Here, the main objective was the introduction of learning design to the process of academic development. Though, this project can be perceived as one step forward within the ongoing process of modernisation and improvement of the Belarusian system of higher education.

Among the few immediate effects of the MACICT project on the participating academic staff at the five Belarusian beneficiaries were:
1) forming skills in designing a study module and structuring the curriculum based on learning outcomes of its modules;
2) enhancing skills in formal description of the study module in its syllabus;
3) developing skills of organising supporting materials for students to back up the turn to student-centred education, and
4) enhancing use of appropriate pedagogical approaches and teaching and learning methods to match student-centredness and labour-market orientation of outcomes-based education.

This work reports the impact of capacity building within the MaCICT project on teaching staff in Belarus. The results are measured by changes in the experiences of the teachers and changes in the performance of students. Although the long-term effects of this contribution cannot be observed or even expected at the time being, the immediate impact of the project on the targeted audiences is evident. Possible future developments towards the sustainability of the project results will be discussed.

Keywords:

ICT curriculum improvement, university teacher education.