The Prime Minister of Serbia, Ana Brnabic, assessed today that the country is significantly advancing in digital skills in education and that, as a country aspiring to membership in the European Union, it wants to join an initiative that would help the Union not lag behind China and the United States.
Brnabic, who participated in the online meeting of the Digital Swiss Initiative, pointed out that education is the main focus of the Government of Serbia when it comes to digitalization.
– I firmly believe that this is the cornerstone that will determine the competitiveness of our companies for the future, and we have invested a lot in that, said Brnabić.
She reminded that the subject of coding and programming for fifth grade elementary school students has been introduced since 2017, so that next year will be the first generation of completed elementary school students who will have full knowledge of programming languages.
Brnabic said that innovations continued and that the subject Digital World was introduced for first grade elementary school students this school year.
Children learn about digital devices, skills, safety of those devices, she assessed.
Brnabic said that the Government of Serbia is doing all this “hand in hand” with the Digital Serbia initiative.
We have also invested around 100 million euros in infrastructure for startups, research and development, science and technology parks, and as the new Government of Serbia, we will continue with investments, added Ana Brnabic.
She assessed that Serbia is one of the few countries in the region where students are increasingly enrolling in technical faculties.
Brnabic also cited the example that two percent of high school students in Serbia enroll in specialized IT departments in high schools.
Serbia is a small country, of about seven million people, our advantage can come from the EU. We are a country that aspires to membership in the Union, but we want to see, it is in our interest, that Europe strengthens in the digital sphere, said Brnabic.
Unfortunately, the EU is lagging behind. The key players are China, the USA, Europe is there, but it is lagging behind, said Brnabic and assessed that the establishment of e-government in Serbia has significantly affected the environment.
From June 2017, when we established the e-government system until today, Brnabic stated that about 15,000 trees, 65 million liters of water or 5,700 megawatts of electricity have been preserved.
Imagine the savings that the administration in Brussels does, Brnabic pointed out.
The representative of Digital Serbia, Nebojsa Djurdjevic, mentioned that Serbia joins the initiative of Digital Switzerland, ie the Letter of Intent “Digitalage goes Europe”, Danas reports.
