ICT in Education

1. Overview

In these times whereby information and technology is widespread and evolving at the speed of light, ICT is also at the same time being incorporated into our daily life such that we have reached a stage whereby we cannot live without some degree of ICT in our lives. We use ICT for entertainment, information gathering, education, shopping, and many other uses. As such, people have identified the importance of incorporating ICT into our education system. We need to train our future nation builders into people who are capable of using ICT, and at the same time, we reap the benefits of using ICT to educate our students.

In light of this matter, the government, alongside the Ministry of Education, has planned several initiatives for merging ICT with education within and outside of their plans to make Singapore a country that has a higher-degree of ICT usage. Initiatives include National ICT Plan: IT2000, the iN2015 Education and Learning plan and the three Masterplans in Education.

2. History and milestones

• 2.1 Under the National ICT Plan: IT2000: the intelligent island: It aims to set up the necessary IT infrastructure in schools and provide the necessary support from the relevant industries. It also aims to facilitate the infusion of IT in all aspects of life and foster a social culture that favors IT applications.
  • 2.1.1 Set up basic information infrastructure (1980 - 1985)
    • School Link Project
    • Computer Appreciation Clubs
    • Computer Science
  • 2.1.2 Develop national information infrastructure (1985 - 1996)
    • Professional Computing Support Programme
    • Computer Applications
    • Elements of Office Administration
    • JCNet projects
    • Student's and Teacher's Workbench

• 2.2 Under the National ICT Plan: iN2015: the intelligent nation: The Government, along with IDA, unveiled the Masterplan for IT in Education policy to integrate ICT into daily curriculum by transforming the learning environment
  • 2.2.1 Implement the First Masterplan for ICT in education (1997 - 2002)
    • Optimize the ICT infrastructure in schools
    • IT training for school teachers
    • Integrate ICT in to the lesson plans
  • 2.2.2 Implement the Second Masterplan for ICT in education (2003 - 2008)
    • Greater interactivity and engagement in the learning process
    • Schools had autonomy to integrate ICT into alternative pedagogies
    • Allowed students to expand learning horizons through exploring virtual world
    • FutureSchools@Singapore and LEAD ICT@Schools
    • iSHARE was introduced to share resources in the repository
  • 2.2.3 Implement the third masterplan for ICT in education (2009 - 2014)
    • Bring ICT into the core of the education process
    • Improve the capabilities and skill sets of teachers
    • Improve the sharing of best practices and successful innovations
    • Upgrade the technology to maximize the potential of ICT
    • FutureSchools@Singapore and LEAD ICT@Schools in the establishment of the network of educational labs
    • Improve the accessibility of ICT through more flexible and mobile infrastructure provision