ELEVENTH PARLIAMENT OF SINGAPORE (SECOND SESSION)
MONDAY, 14 SEPTEMBER 2009

Miss Penny Low: To ask the Minister for Education

(a) how is information and communications technology (ICT) currently being used in schools;

(b) what is the Ministry’s plan to roll out FutureSchools nationwide;

(c) what are the costs and benefits of implementing ICT in schools; and

(d) how has ICT changed formal education.

Dr Ng Eng Hen:

Let me first address the more general questions about the role of ICT in education, before addressing the more specific questions relating to FutureSchools.

ICT is an investment that we need to make to prepare our students for the 21st century.  Through the use of ICT, our students develop competencies for self-directed and collaborative learning to succeed in a knowledge-based economy.  ICT also allows learning experiences to be better customised according to the way each student learns best.

Singapore is now into its third ICT masterplan in schools.  We have equipped all our schools, trained teachers, and ICT is now part and parcel of the teaching and learning process.

As part of the implementation of the third ICT masterplan, schools will integrate ICT into 50% of the curriculum time by 2014.  Students learn critical ICT skills through different subjects, e.g., keyboarding during lower primary English and use of spreadsheets during upper primary and secondary Mathematics. Apart from productivity tools and the Internet, students also participate in web2.0 collaborative learning environments with the use of mobile technologies and data collection tools.  Schools use a self-evaluation tool to ascertain the proficiency of their students across the different core ICT skills.

The ICT-enriched environment in our schools has brought about a shift in the way students learn. They are now more actively engaged in learning through interacting with not only text but interactive ICT tools such as dataloggers to deepen their understanding of concepts.  With multimedia tools such as video cameras and web2.0 technologies such as wikis, students now collaboratively review and create knowledge with peers within and beyond their classrooms.  Many students have also excelled in international competitions like the International Olympiad in Informatics.  Students who are confident about the use of ICT also make for a more e-ready citizenry, paving the way for more innovative e-services to be implemented in Singapore.

MOE will continue to take a balanced and judicious approach in its investment, paying due attention to ICT infrastructure, learning resources and capacity-building for educators.  The use of ICT needs to move in tandem with changes in curriculum, assessment and pedagogy.

FutureSchools are to push the frontiers of learning and teaching at a school-wide level to fully harness ICT to engage students in learning. To-date, six schools have been selected as FutureSchools.  The next batch of FutureSchools will be selected in 2011.  Our intent is to develop up to a total of 15 FutureSchools by 2015. This phased approach will ensure that the technologies proposed and employed can be the most up-to-date during the different phases and thus allow greater benefits. It will allow us to derive learning points from the first-phase to inform the implementation of later phases.  It is thus a cost effective way for MOE to sustain innovations in our schools given the rapid rate of ICT change.