Despite proclamations of heavy investment in ICTin schools, the UKstill lags behind Singapore when it comes to resources in the classroom, writes Chris Johnston

Doug Brown, manager of the UK’s National Grid for Learning, proudly told of the pound;1.8 billion investment in the initiative to boost ICTin British schools, when he addressed Singaporean head teachers and figures from the UK educational ICTworld late last year. Brown was speaking at an event that took place in the city state, organised by the British Council and Singapore’s Ministry of Education, yet his words don’t change the fact that Singaporean schools remain much better resourced than most in Britain.

It could be argued that Singapore needs to ensure students leave school with well-developed technology skills, as people are the nation’s only natural resource - a highly skilled population is the only way to develop a knowledge-based economy. Yet if Britain wants to maintain its place as the world’s fourth largest economy, the knowledge and skills of its workers are the key as well.

The push to get technology into schools in Singapore began in 1997 with the IT Masterplan, worth about pound;750 million over five years - a massive sum considering there are just 500,000 pupils. The aim was to build an “IT-rich learning environment” by 2002, and that goal has largely been achieved.

The facilities at Pasir Ris secondary are typical. The 1,450-pupil school has one computer per five students and every teacher has a laptop - better than the government target of one per two staff. Internet access is via the high-speed Singapore One network that covers the island. Every department has a digital camera, there are data projectors in most classrooms along with CD writers so students can burn multimedia presentations onto disc.

Ms Yeo Hong Mui, principal of Pasir Ris, has led by example and forced her 89 staff (69 of whom are teachers) to use technology by sending out information by email, not paper, and giving every departmental head a Palm Pilot. One of her best ideas was to have each class select a pupil who is sufficiently clued up to help the teacher when technical problems arise. This is because, as Yeo readily admits: “Students know more than the teachers do.”

Both the UK and Singapore have an education system based on didactic teaching methods that are ill-suited to preparing students for a world in which information does not need to be stored in your head, but can be found when it is needed by a few keystrokes and mouse clicks. Ms Yeo of Pasir Ris acknowledges that teachers are no longer the sole gatekeepers of knowledge. She says it was critical that they helped students gain the ability to evaluate, organise and predict the vast pool of knowledge available online. “Otherwise, we are releasing students into no man’s land,” she says, “and that is very dangerous.”

Encouraging schools to change the way they operate to reflect this change is a challenge facing both the UK and Singapore,” says Marian Brooks, head of Cranford Community College in west London. This will demand that teachers alter the methods they have used for years and require more effective ways of integrating ICT across the curriculum.

Doing so is likely to require a loosening up of the curriculum, which is what Singapore is planning to do. Tan Yap Kwang, director of the Education Ministry’s Educational Technology Division, says the curriculum content is being cut by up to 30 per cent in certain subjects to give teachers the time to experiment with ICT and to better teach thinking skills to pupils. It was a revelation that several UK delegates picked up on. According to Nigel Paine, director of Science Year, a similar move would have to take place if Britain wanted such reform in its schools. Only then could personalised learning plans be feasible.

However, he adds that such a significant change would require schools to “reflect the real world”, which, unlike schools, was not hierarchical, vertically integrated or information-sparse. Singapore’s Tan Yap Kwang agrees that education has to move from “one size fits all” to “mass customisation”.

Reform of assessment methods will need to take place so that learning can be targeted at individuals rather than groups, according to Clare Johnson, ICT principal manager of the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, so that students know where they are and what progress they have made. Yet she says research has shown that students perform differently when taking exams online rather than on paper and this has to be taken into account.

A particularly stark contrast between Britain and Singapore’s teaching approaches is, according to Tam Yap Kwang, that the government has given its education technology department a “mandate to make mistakes”. Teachers are encouraged to experiment and are given the training and on-site support they need, he says. Compare this with the demands on British teachers, who are encouraged to stick firmly to the curriculum and in general lack adequate support and training. The UK has also made the mistake, in Clare Johnson’s view, of basing plans on the technology itself, rather than thinking about how it can be used to support teaching and learning.

Bringing about change is simpler in an education system with just 377 schools and 23,600 teachers (and when the government has no opposition to speak of), but Britain can learn valuable lessons here - if it chooses to.

Chris Johnston travelled courtesy of the British Council Singapore. The TES thanks Les Dangerfield and his staff