NATIONAL STRATEGY FOR INFORMATION SOCIETY DEVELOPMENT AND ACTION PLAN 36 2.4 E- EDUCATION ... We are drowning in information, but still we are hungry for knowledge... John Nesbit The current concept of knowledge based society increseases the need of professionals who, besides the needed expertise in certain field, posses good communication and social skills, are well informed, always ready to learn and are in position to manage the new situations. Necessary preconditions for successful participation in the knowledge based society are the transformation of the educational piramide and creative use of the acquired knowledge and expertise, having also the ability to create original solutions. Therefore, the education has a central place as an indisputable key towards sustainable development, quality and competition. In this context the eeducation is a new form of education focusing on the student. The innovative use of the information and communication technologies will improve the traditional system of learning by essential transformation of the curricula and the way of learning and will eliminate the boundaries among the student and the teacher and the school, the home and the place of work. This form of education is to enable skills and capacities in order to be able to function better in the modern world having global perspectives and broadmindedness. The distance learning system, the e-learning, the lifelong learning and other flexible forms of learning, as well as the possibility of development and presentation of multimedia and multilingual contents are just some of the examples illustrating the place of the information and communication technologies in the new e-education. 2.4.1 Current Situation The use of the ICT (Information and Communication Technologies) in the education, science and culture in the Republic of Macedonia is at a unsatisfactory low level particularly in comparison with the developed countries in the European Union. This kind of situation is due to the lack of sufficient ICT equipment in the appropriate institutions. The larger number of the primary and high schools is neither connected to the Internet nor to any other intranet for exchange of information. Moreover, the situation is similar with the cultural institutions as well. The universities have common infrastructure and are connected to the Internet that is still on a very low level as regards the European Union standards and with the similar institutions in the wider environment. In the existing educational structure in the Republic of Macedonia the information curricula are present neither at the appropriate level nor in the appropriate form. Moreover, there is no specialised faculty profiling experts in the area of the information technologies. It is evident that such structure of the educational system is not in a position of "producing" ICT staff with higher education, as well as other profiles of ICT professionals that are to be responsible for the introduction and the use of the ICT in the society. There are no certificate accreditation systems for ICT programmes and there is no impetus for their use. The ICT knowledge among the teaching staff is also insufficient. The number of teachers using the information and communication technologies is very small, while the number of those using the ICT in the process of implementation of the curricula is just symbolical. The main reason is that the curricula are not adapted to the information technology and lack of the vision for the potentials of the transformations that the new technologies can promote in the education system at all. In order to be able to create a knowledge based society, the education has to change and adopt. The use of the ICT in the educational process is also identified in the National Programme for NATIONAL STRATEGY FOR INFORMATION SOCIETY DEVELOPMENT AND ACTION PLAN