Singapore's IT2000: Applying a National Information
Infrastructure to Education to
Develop its Economy
Thomas I. M. Ho
Senior Fellow
National University of Singapore
Department of Information Systems
and Computer Science
Singapore 0511
REPUBLIC OF SINGAPORE
Phone: +65 772 6807
Fax: +65 779 4580
Internet: tho@iscs.nus.sg
Education is widely recognized as a key
factor in developing economies.
Information technology is often a key part
of the strategy of developing economies.
This is clearly the case in Singapore's
newly industrialized economy which intends
to become a developed nation through its
strategy dubbed "Singapore: The Next Lap"
This strategy proposes to further
internationalize Singapore's economy and to
promote entrepreneurship.
IT2000 is Singapore's plan to develop a
National Information Infrastructure. Among
the applications of this infrastructure,
education and training are prominently
featured.
IT2000 is first described by answering the
following questions:
Plans for supporting pre-tertiary education
through the National Information
Infrastructure (NII) are illustrated by a
pilot project to extend Internet access to
Singapore's primary and secondary schools.
Similarly, American NII activities in
education are also described to illustrate
resources that are available to supplement
Singapore's efforts.
Efforts to reform education through information technology (Corcoran, 1993) have entered the mainstream of society. In particular, the popular press (Treese, 1994) contained over 2300 articles about the Internet during the first nine months of 1993 and in many of those articles, educational applications dominated!
In its report on IT2000, Singapore's National Computer Board (1992) envisioned five major goals for IT2000:
Furthermore, among IT2000's eleven sectoral study groups, "Education & Training" was chartered to identify strategic educational applications. Soh et.al. (1993) reports that each sector report (these reports are confidential) includes:
The world has changed, but education hasn't necessarily adapted to these changes. At a recent Principals' Conference in Singapore, John Yip, Director of Education, was quoted (Leong): "It is crucial that we have a good education system which is relevant to the times. Change is inevitable.... Help students to develop attitudes and skills with which they can independently seek knowledge, process information and apply it to tackle issues." Corcoran (p. 66) remarks that "networks are changing the way teachers teach and students learn." Can we apply networking to primary and secondary education? What are the problems of education today in our dynamic contemporary world?
Recognizing the traditional isolation of teachers (and students), Newman (p. 49) argues that we must make a choice between systems that (merely) deliver traditional instruction from a central repository and systems that enable teachers and students to access and gather information from distributed resources and communities. The experience of teacher Sandra McCourtney (Corcoran, p. 67) demonstrates that a network can bring children the excitement of the outside world. Even independent research by students is possible as recognized by Bob Hughes (Corcoran, p. 66), Boeing's corporate director of education relations, who sees computer networks as key to turning out students who adapt to change and who solve problems by seeking out and applying new ideas. To reduce isolation of both teachers and students, telecommunications can be used:
In one of the recent flood of articles on networking in the mainstream press, Markoff (1993) laments inequities such as:
Restructuring educational institutions is part of the global trend to re-engineering business processes (Ho & Tan, 1993) to enable:
As a progressive force for change, equity, and restructuring primary and secondary education, information technology has been offered as a mechanism for fostering change. More specifically, many proponents have identified networking as a mechanism for change. In particular, efforts to promote the US National Information Infrastructure (NII) for use in primary and secondary education have been most representative of this point of view!
The Information Infrastructure Task Force (IITF) oversees US NII activities. To provide advice on all issues facing the IITF, its own NIIAC (NII Advisory Council) assembles groups of experts to work with the working groups of the IITF. Currently, the NIIAC has organized three "Mega-Projects": 1.Vision and Goals for the NII 2.Access to the NII 3.Privacy, Security and Intellectual Property The framework for each project includes: 1.What technologies and services exist today and how will these be impacted by the development and implementation of the information highway? 2.What is the national interest being served by the development and implementation of the information highway? 3.What are the private interests in this evolution? 4.What are the public interests? 5.Where do the public and private interests intersect and how can they be accommodated? 6.What are the international implications of this issue? Each of these projects has significant implications for education.
The Telecommunications and Information Infrastructure Assistance Program of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (US Department of Commerce) is a competitive grant program to support projects that enhance the delivery of social services such as education.
Both the United States and Singapore have been active in applying national information infrastructure to primary and secondary education.
The US Department of Education maintains a WorldWideWeb server that articulates its mission and the national education goals and provides a guide through the "maze" of the federal educational bureaucracy. It also provides links to the department's gopher servers, especially that of the Office of Educational Research and Improvement (OERI), and disseminates publications such as newsletters and press releases. OERI's mission includes:
The AskERIC Virtual Library is indeed a "virtual library" that currently is built around a gopher server. ERIC is the Educational Resources Information Center, a federally-funded national information system that provides access to a wealth of education-related literature.
The Cisco Education Catalog is a unique resource because it's the result of a private sector effort to provide an educational resource center. It provides a comprehensive set of links to educational resources on the Internet.
Likewise, Educational Online Sources is a similar resource that is distinguished by its effort to invite contributors to its on-line collection.
The National School Network Testbed (Bernstein, et. al.) is a national research and development resource in which schools, school districts, community organizations, state education agencies, technology developers, and industry partners are experimenting with applications that bring significant new educational benefits to teachers and students.
The Consortium for School Networking has been most active in promoting this movement through its on-line Internet discussion (cosndisc@bitnic.educom.edu) and other activities. For membership information, send mail to info@cosn.org .
Singapore's Ministry of Education is pioneering Internet access in several junior colleges (grades 11-12) and a secondary school. These projects have been conducting experiments to address (through telecommunications) the educational problems described earlier. Full deployment to all junior colleges with full Internet functionality is on the verge of happening!
Corcoran, Elizabeth. "Why Kids Love Computer Nets." Fortune 128, 6 (20 September 1993), pp. 65-70. Treese, Win (treese@crl.dec.com). "The Internet Index." Internet Society News 2, 4 (Winter 1994), p. 38. National Computer Board. A Vision of an Intelligent Island: The IT2000 Report (March 1992), Singapore. Soh, Christina (acsoh@v9000.ntu.ac.sg); Neo, Boon-Siong; and Markus, M. Lynne. "IT2000: A Critical Appraisal of Singapore's State-wide Strategic Planning Process for Information Technology." Journal of Strategic Information Systems 2, 4 (December 1993), pp. 315-327. Leong, Chan Teik. "Teach initiative, daring, principals urged." The Straits Times (7 September 1993), p. 3. Newman, Denis (dnewman@bbn.com). "School Networks: Delivery or Access." Communications of the ACM 36, 5 (May 1993), pp. 49-51. Markoff, John (markoff@nyt.com). "Hanging Out in a Global Neighborhood." International Herald Tribune (2 September 1993), pp. 1 & 5. Hunter, Beverly (bhunter@copernicus.bbn.com). "Internetworking: Coordinating Technology for Systemic Reform." Communications of the. ACM 36, 5 (May 1993), pp. 42- 46. Ho, Thomas I. M. and Tan, Margaret. "Using business process
re-engineering principles in educational reform?" (1993), National University of Singapore. Sproull, Lee (lsproull@acs.bu.edu) and Kiesler, Sara (kiesler@cmu.edu). "Computers, Networks and Work." Scientific American 265, 3 (September 1991), pp. 116-123. Bernstein, S. (slb@bbn.com); Newman, D.; and Huntley, M. "Toward Universal Access to Math and Science Resources." Bolt Beranek and Newman (June 1993)
Bibliographic reference:
Proceedings CommunicAsia94, pp. E1-E7, Singapore, 1-3 June 1994