The National Bank of Poland Economics Education Portal (www.nbportal.pl) was launched in 2003 to disseminate and broaden the knowledge about economics and economy, and to support other educational activities of the NBP. Access to the resources of the portal is free, and they include information on current developments in the Polish economy, macroeconomic analyses and expert assessments, multimedia e-learning courses, teaching aids, decision quizzes and games related to the subject of economics, as well as a virtual library including electronic versions of scientific publications and a dictionary of economic terms.

Policy Context

The National Bank of Poland in accordance with its statute undertakes activities in the area of common education in Econmics. In a study conducted for the NBP in January 2003 respondents in all groups indicated that economic knowledge has a profound effect in their professional and personal lives. Simultaneously the same groups pointed the lack of a single, reliable and complete educational medium. In view of the above findings and recognizing the increasing role of internet in global communication and education, the Polish central bank developed the Economic Education Portal, supported with a series of CD-ROM mirroring the portal's multimedia educational content. Using up-to date e-learning technology the portal provides the best possible and reliable educational content in the areas of general economics, applied economics and European integration. Thus the website includes an e-learning centre, thousands of articles and practical guidelines, a virtual library with numerous publications, a handful of multimedia presentations, interactive online games, quizzes, puzzles and cross boards, as well as a specially designed teachers centre where the latter find scripts helping them to organize classes on economic topics. Our goals include creating an e-learning centre, delivering and providing economic educational content, developing and facilitating practical and useful skills, equipping teachers with tools to enhance the classes of economic and personal finance, supporting other educational institutions.

Description of target users and groups

The three general target groups are:1) students, 2) teachers and academics, 3) citizens in general. The portal has been designed to support the interests of every target group, which is reflected in a clear organization of the content.

Main results, benefits and impacts

The establishment of e-learning tools sparked an unprecedented interest in studying economics via NBPortal.pl, on a basic and a professional level. In less than four months in 2005 the number of NBPortal.pl users rose by 50% while the popularity of on-line learning continues to grow at a level of 20% per month. Our certificates received a warming welcome among students and widespread recognition by respective educational authorities.

Return on investment

Return on investment: Not applicable / Not available

Track record of sharing

Our initiative has strong technical foundations, including a scalable e-learning platform and an experienced team handling the NBPortal.pl. Therefore if the above presented initiative should receive acceptance by respective authorities it would be our pleasure to develop an English version of the e-learning courses available on our site, thus allowing in fact all Europeans unlimited access to a comprehensive online educational tool.

Lessons learnt

Lesson 1. The most relevant learning point is that our portal proved that there is a handful of citizen who follow with great attention the processes taking place in economy. Moreover they want to understand the impact on their private lives of the various macroeconomic processes taking place in Poland and in the EU. However, people need a reliable source of information and education, both professional and comprehensive for the average citizen. Lesson 2. The second point is that people are using IT and internet solutions in the process of searching for and gathering information and education. Lesson 3. Every education initiative must include evaluation mechanisms. This is very difficult when it comes to e-learning. However our team of tutors has paid great attention to the process of controlling our users study path. On the other hand it is even more difficult to measure the impact of this education process on the overall state of the economy, yet it surely must be done since not doing it at all could be followed by negative consequences on the marco and microeconomic level. Scope: National