The developers of the state educational platform “Mriya” have announced the launch of a national gamification system. As part of the pilot project, Ukrainian schoolchildren will be able to earn internal virtual currency for completing educational tasks and exchange it for real gifts, services, or entertainment.
The Ministry of Digital Transformation announced the introduction of the new functionality.
According to the developers, the system should shift the focus from anxiety over final grades to motivation for daily learning. Soon, the application will have three new components. The basis will be the internal currency “Mriyka”, which will be credited for completed homework, watching educational videos and other activities. The developers will also add “Kmitlivki” – short daily quizzes in a game format.
Students will be able to spend their earned digital points in a special virtual space called “Shop”. There, the accumulated “Dreams” will be exchanged for offers from partner companies: movie tickets, VR quests, classes with tutors, master classes, as well as certificates for toys or books.
“Schools are used to assessing progress primarily by grades, so they don’t always notice the efforts that a child makes every day. It is important for us that Mriya helps to see not only the result, but also the path to it. For example, the strips already show how many days in a row a student has been doing homework. Now new gamification elements will help to celebrate the child’s useful actions and support his desire to move forward,” explained project co-leader Oleksandr Pavlenko.
At the first stage, the system will be tested in 100 selected educational institutions. School administrations that are already using the application can independently apply for participation in the pilot . In parallel, the development team calls on Ukrainian businesses to join the initiative and offer their goods or services to fill the virtual store. After testing, collecting feedback, and improving the mechanics, they plan to scale the functionality to all schools connected to the system.
Three years after its launch, the Mriya ecosystem unites 4,300 educational institutions — that’s every third school in Ukraine — and over 640,000 users, including students, parents, and teachers. The project is being implemented by the Ministry of Digital Affairs and the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine with the support of the Swiss-Ukrainian EGAP program. Last year, the project attracted $1.5 million in grant aid from Google to accelerate the development of innovative artificial intelligence tools.
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