Singapore ICT in Education





Overview
The student population in Singapore has already attained a high level of academic achievements as measured by several international studies (for example, MOE, 2004). But to thrive in the future world of the 21st Century, the Singapore government believes that its students must learn to think creatively, be comfortable with new technologies and be able to exploit these new technologies to venture beyond their current boundaries (MOE, 1997 ). One of the means of achieving this is through the launching of Masterplan for ICT in Education. The Ministry of Education has launched three phases of the Masterplan for ICT between the period 1997-2010. The three phases of the Masterplan are summarised below:

The first Masterplan for ICT in Education (MP1; 1997 — 2002)
1. Focus: to lay a strong foundation for schools to harness ICT, particularly in the provision of basic ICT infrastructure and in equipping teachers with a basic level of ICT competency.

2. Budget: The government committed $2 billion from 1997 to 2002 to implement the first Masterplan for ICT in Education. This fund was for purchase of computers, full networking of the schools, physical renovations, software and courseware, and teacher training. Subsequently, another $600 million a year was to be provided to maintain and replace hardware, develop new software, and for the continuous training of teachers. 

3. Achievements: (a)Infrastructure: According to the 2002 Information Society Index, Singapore,together with 13 other countries, belongs to the Skaters category, a group of countries in a strong position to take full advantage of the information revolution because of advanced information, computer, Internet and social infrastructures. More directly related to education, in the Global Competitiveness Report 2001-2002, Singapore was ranked 2nd in the world, after Finland, for the availability of Internet access in schools. b)Teachers: Teacher training was the centrepiece of the first Masterplan, with every teacher in every school receiving the core of 30-50 hours of training in use of IT in teaching over the course of a year. On a national scale, this is exceptional by international comparisons - exceeding that in Israel, Finland and Norway, who have also placed importance on training.

Note: There have been arguments that the achievements of the MP1 are insufficient for changing schools and teachers’ practices (Koh, 2004). Such gaps between the policies and the realities of classrooms are also commonly reported in studies from other countries (for example, see OECD, 2001; Demetriadis et al., 2003).

The second Masterplan for ICT in Education (MP2; 2003 — 2008)
1. Focus: The vision of MP2 is encapsulated in the conception of Engaged Learning (Jones, Valdez, Nowakowshi, & Rasmussen, 1995). In MP2, the priorities were:

(1) Set baseline ICT standards for pupils' learning experiences to ensure that all schools achieve a baseline level of ICT use.

(2) Fully support schools that are ready to achieve higher levels of ICT use in education by introducing more recognition schemes and conducting further research on developing and prototyping pedagogical models.

(3) Develop schools' capacity within the framework of        autonomy to take full ownership of their schools' ICT implementation.

(4) Strengthen the integration of ICT in the curriculum and assessment by focusing on areas of strategic importance and needs and developing partnership models to resource the schools.

2. Budget: ?

3. Achievements: (1)By setting baseline ICT standards that every student has to achieve at certain milestones of their education (i.e. basic typing skills by Primary 3, application of         data for scientific investigation by Secondary 4), MOE ensures that every student will attain certain ICT skills that are necessary for the 21st century.

(2)Under the recognition schemes, schools have competed to come up with innovative usage of ICT in education and daily curriculum, and from this, the MOE has recognised some schools that have displayed innovative use of ICT and provided them with additional resource to continue with their activities. MOE has also recognised some schools as FutureSchools@Singapore and LEAD ICT@Schools. Some schools came up with alternative pedagogies such as         inquiry-based learning and problem-based learning. Some of the ICT usages include blogs, wikis, podcasts, e-portfolios, animations and video production, in which students displayed and demonstrated what they learnt in class. Class outings had been enriched by mobile learning such as the development of e-trails, use of dataloggers, PDAs and mobile phones.

The third Masterplan for ICT in Education (MP3; 2009-2014)
1. Focus: To enrich and transform the learning environments of our students and equip them with the critical competencies and dispositions to succeed in a knowledge economy in the 21st century.

2. The broad strategies of the third Masterplan for ICT in Education are : (1)	To strengthen integration of ICT into curriculum, pedagogy and assessment to enhance learning and develop competencies for the 21st century; (2)	To provide differentiated professional development that is more practice-based and models how ICT can be effectively used to help students learn better;

(3)    To improve the sharing of best practices and successful innovations; and

(4)    To enhance ICT provisions in schools to support the implementation of mp3.

The third Master Plan is at the beginning stage of implementation now. For more information on the Masterplans for ICT in Education, visit the following websites:


 * Masterplan 1


 * Masterplan 2


 * Masterplan 3

Author
Yu Mei Wang