Third Strategy on IT in Education

On 26 October 2007, the Education Bureau has published a consultation paper on the third strategy on IT in Education. The consultation paper proposed an action plan for the third strategy to enable teachers to use the right technology at the right time for the right task. The highlights include:

1. To develop an online depository of teaching modules which provide guidance to teachers on making use of appropriate software and digital resources to integrate IT into learning and teaching.
2. To continue and expand existing mechanism of dissemination of good IT pedagogical skills to teachers.
3. To assist schools to develop and implement a model school-based IT in education roadmap, which will help schools to understand their current situation, prioritize activities and allocate resources more effectively.
4. To continue existing recurrent allocation of resources for replacing and upgrading existing IT facilities; and set aside a $200 million one-off grant for schools to procure additional IT facilities to integrate IT into teaching.
5. To strengthen technical support to schools and teachers by maintaining the existing ITeHelp call centre for five more years and setting up a central technical support team in EDB.
6. To allocate $1 million and collaborate with NGOs to raise parents’ information literacy and assist them in guiding children to use IT at home.

Considering there are over one thousand primary and secondary schools in Hong Kong, each school will receive less than $200,000 from the $200 million one-off grant, I doubt if it will be sufficient. In addition, to reduce teachers’ workload from managing IT development, the Government should introduce the concept of Chief Information Officer to each school, who will be responsible for the school’s IT development.

This proposing strategy is the third one, preceding are the first strategy and the second strategy announced in 1998 and 2004 respectively. The third strategy will provide us a blueprint for the next stage of IT in education development. The consultation will be ended on 28 November 2007, I urge you to read through the consultation paper to have a further understanding. If you have any comments, you can send to consultation_ited@edb.gov.hk.

If you have any comments on the third strategy on IT in education, please do share you view by dropping me a few lines at cksin@sinchungkai.org.hk.

CK Sin

Panels

• Public consultation on the proposed Unified Carrier Licences
• Public consultation on the introduction of new class licences
• Survey results on broadcasting services and complaint handling mechanism of Television and Entertainment Licensing Authority

Motions

28 November 2007

• Maintaining the political neutrality of the civil service
• Responding to the problem of climate change

5 December 2007

• Optimizing the community environment

Council questions

• Developing Hong Kong into a key data centre in the region (14 November 2007)
• Energy efficiency of public lighting systems (21 November 2007)
• Transport information system (21 November 2007)

Activities

Green Computing Forum 2007

Jointly organized by HK Linux Pilot and HKPC, this forum will cover the trends of green computing technology, its best practices and the latest solutions.

Information Security Summit 2007

The Information Security Summit 2007 is a Regional Event with the aim to give participants from Hong Kong, Macau and China an update on the latest development, trends and status in information security. This year's Summit will include a one-day conference and a number of workshops on all aspects of information security.

Mobility World Congress & Exhibition

Organized by Beacon Events, formerly known as the 3G World Congress & Exhibition the exhibition in 2007 will feature 50 companies exhibiting the latest products and services in the mobile industry.

As an elected legislator, I always love to know your views. If you have anything would like to share with me, you can either email me or make an appointment for an office visit or home visit. Please leave your name, contact number, and discussion topic via email, and my office will follow up your request with phone calls accordingly.