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Education IT, Government Cloud

By 2015, cloud-hosted digital textbooks in Korea

By Xinghui Guo | 8 July 2011

In another four years, South Korea will have its textbooks fully digitised. The 2.23 trillion won (US$2 billion) project will see the country of 50 million build on schools’ ICT infrastructure and purchasing digital devices like tablet computers.

Under the Smart Education Strategies plan that the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology and the President’s Council on Information Strategies shared with President Lee Myung-bak, paper-based textbooks, reference books, dictionaries and other materials for elementary schools will be digitalised by 2014.

By 2015, all middle and high school students will use digital textbooks and online-based material on computers, smartphones and other devices.

Learning materials will be accessible as and when students and teachers need them through a cloud computing system in which information will be stored on the server computer instead of personal devices. Wireless networks will be constructed at all schools to support the cloud use.

25 per cent of all teachers will be sent to smart education training annually and provided with smart teaching devices. The smart devices will also be provided to students from low-income households first and to students with disabilities to ensure that these technologies are accessible to all.

The education ministry also has plans to promote online lectures and evaluate students’ academic abilities through internet-based tests in 2015, replacing paper-based ones.

“Korean students have ranked first in terms of digital literacy among developed nations according to the OECD-run Programme for International Student Assessment,” said an official from the Education Ministry. “That’s why Korean students, who are already fully prepared for digital society, need a paradigm shift in education.”

In 2009, South Korea ranked first in the Digital Reading Assessment conducted by the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development’s Programme for International Student Assessment.

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