Belarus's new development program will facilitate faster integration into the European educational space

November 15, Vitebsk / Diana Kurilo - BELTA /. The draft Program for the Socio-Economic Development of Belarus for 2011-2015 is future-oriented and will allow Belarus to integrate faster into the European educational and economic space. This point of view was expressed in a conversation with a BELTA correspondent by Vladimir Shitko, Director of the Luzhesnyan Boarding School-Gymnasium for Gifted Children (Vitebsk region), a member of the Council of the Special Fund of the President of the Republic of Belarus for the Support of Gifted Students, commenting on the draft published in the media. The gymnasium director showed particular interest in the program provisions concerning education, youth policy, and sports. "The application of information technologies in education is a giant step towards integrating the domestic educational process into the European system not only of education but also of the economy," Vladimir Shitko is confident. At the same time, he believes that the implementation of the program will create equal conditions for obtaining education both in urban and rural areas. The state's continued attention to the development of sports and physical culture is dictated, in the interlocutor's opinion, by concern for the health of the nation. "Even if new sports palaces do not bring quick economic benefits, they are being built for our children, to instill in them healthy lifestyle skills, and this cannot be valued by money alone," he added. The Luzhesnyan Boarding School-Gymnasium educates 269 children from different parts of the Vitebsk region, 169 of whom are scholarship holders of the Special Fund of the President of Belarus for the Support of Gifted Students. In the 15 years of the gymnasium's existence, its students have won republican subject Olympiads 165 times and international Olympiads 15 times. -0-