EUN European Schoolnet, the consortium of European Ministries of Education for ICT was established in 1997. This framework assembles 30 ministries of education from Europe and Israel.
MAKASH took the initiative for the inclusion of Israel in 1998 and since then it works closely with the Ministry of Education, so the educational system in Israel gets most of the benefits enabled by such membership. Here you can browse through a presentation concerning Israel membership in the EUN and the relations between Israel and the European Union.
MAKASH serves as the Israel National Contact Point (NCP) for the EUN European Schoolnet.
The initial mission of the EUN focused on the challenges posed by the new Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) to the educational system. The Internet and ICT having become an integral part of the present civilization the present focus is on pedagogical and educational innovation that is required to cope successfully with the challenges of education in the 21st Century.
The main areas of EUN initiatives are: Innovation in Education; STEM education (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics); and Digital Citizenship.
The EUN is governed through a Steering Committee with its Sub-Committees and Working Groups composed by senior officers that represent the Ministry of Education members of the EUN. They set the priorities for the EUN activities so that these may support them in the unceasing challenges posed by frequent technology changes, innovative pedagogies and training and adaptation of their systems.
Teacher training: a central activity of the EUN that is expressed in several teacher-training programs. The leading initiative is the Future Classroom Lab established following the iTEC (Designing the Future Classroom) project. It serves as the center of an ever-increasing network of similar labs in the different countries.
Projects and campaigns
The EUN manages two large initiative for the European Commission:
eTwinning – it supports projects of collaborative learning between schools and reach 440 thousand teacher in more than 170 schools.
Scientix – an initiative that pools together the results of hundreds of projects financed by the European Commission and concerned with STEM education. The purpose is to increase the interest of youth to learn and choose professions in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics.
The EUN takes the initiative and participates in a wide range of European projects. Israel can participate in those European programs in which it is a partner like the RTD Framework Program of the European Union.