OS MES

2025: Transfer of all educational institutions of the capital to the domestic OS

On February 25, 2025, the Department of Information Technologies (DIT) of the city of Moscow announced the transfer of all educational institutions in the capital to a new operating system. We are talking about "OS MES," which is developed specifically for the "Moscow Electronic School." The platform has already been installed on thousands of teachers' laptops, all-in-ones in computer classrooms and interactive panels in Moscow schools.

According to the press service of DIT, the operating system "OS MES" is included in the register of domestic software of the Ministry of Digital Development, Communications and Mass Media of Russia. From 2025, it will be used to organize state final certification of schoolchildren, including conducting the main state exam and training OGEs both in computer and in writing.

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Фото: Freepik

For the first time in Russia, the capital's DIT developed and implemented its own educational operating system in 2023 as part of a software import substitution policy. The transition to a domestic solution was an important step towards digital sovereignty and the security of these students and teachers of Moscow schools.

MES OS is based on the Linux kernel and open source software. The system is equipped with an intuitive interface that includes standard windows, menus and controls. The operating system is preinstalled with a full set of necessary programs: web browsers, office applications, multimedia editors and other tools for comfortable work of students and teachers.

With the help of the new operating system in 2025, the preparation and printing of examination materials will be provided, as well as the translation of the forms of the exam participants into electronic form directly in the classrooms of the examination points. This approach will ensure stability, transparency and convenience of examination processes for graduates and teachers.

As TAdviser was told in DIT Moscow, the decision to develop its own OS was made due to the fact that a huge fleet of various computer and peripheral equipment in the capital's educational institutions "did not support any of the operating systems on the market."

In addition, it was necessary to support a wide range of specific software solutions that are used in education (for example, to conduct robotics lessons in engineering classes and in preparation for GIA) and other urban systems. A solution was required that would ensure the independence of the capital from third-party solutions and developers, which is especially important for the continuity of the educational process, and would also allow combining the infrastructure into a single ecosystem compatible with digital MES services, so that it would be possible to centrally manage and update software on end-user computers to ensure a continuous educational process, - explained in DIT.