The use of information and communication technology (ICT) in education needs more than adequate hi-tech tools - the quality of ICT-based teaching is also crucial, a Bangkok seminar has been told.
Japan, for instance, has suffered very low rankings for its readiness for e-learning, even though it is recognised as a world leader in technology and has plenty of ICT equipment to serve its population.
Professor Katsuaki Suzuki, from the Graduate School of Instruc-tional Systems at Japan's Kumamoto University, said his country was ranked number one for e-learning readiness in 1979, but by 2003 the Economist Intelligence Unit and IBM had lowered its ranking to 23rd in the world. Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong were ahead of Japan.
Suzuki and other speakers from the UK, Thailand and Singapore were taking part in a seminar entitled "E-Education: Quality, Equity and Sensitivity for Learners and Teachers", held as part of World Didac 2009 Asia Bangkok and the Asia Education Leaders Forum, held at the Queen Sirikit National Convention Centre last week.
Suzuki said Japan's ranking had now risen to number 18, but it still wanted to reach a higher spot.
"E-learning in higher-education institutes is not very good in Japan," he said, adding that about half of all Japanese universities had e-learning programmes only for the credits, and they were not focused on its real advantages.
The Japanese government has invested more in e-learning and has also deregulated the opening of universities and private companies so they can provide e-learning more
easily, he said. In order to increase the quality of e-learning education, Japan came up with a plan last year to give e-learning professional-training certificates to graduates.
The president of the World Association of Publishers, Manufacturers, and Distributors of Educational Materials and director-general of the British Educational Suppliers' Association, Dominic Savage, said ICT was both a subject in the school curriculum and permeated the delivery of every subject.
He said that for young people in Britain, technology was a way of life; through communication, entertainment and sophisticated personal management.
He said that since 1998, £833 million had been spent on technology in English schools.
In 1980, there had been virtually no members of the educational suppliers' association in the ICT field. Now, more than 50 per cent of the association's members were ICT related.
However, Savage said the UK was facing a big problem that obstructed the development of ICT in education. Teachers who were very successful in getting their children to pass through the examination system with good results saw no need to use ICT. They said they and their students were doing well, so why did they need ICT?
Despite a huge budget spent on ICT development and securing enough equipment, there was still a big problem in developing ICT users.
Meanwhile, the director of Chiang Mai University's Information Technology Service Centre, Associate Professor Thanomporn Laohajaratsang, said Thailand had set a goal to invest in ICT infrastructure and equipment and also to develop human resources in 2000, when the country's first national ICT policy was launched.
She said the ratio between the number of computers and Thai students in basic education was 1:40. As a result, 100,000 more computers were needed to make the ratio 1:20, and since 186,868 computers were now available, the government had set the new ratio as a target.
She said about Bt5 billion would be allocated for hardware, software and digital content creation.
Thanomporn said the government also aimed to have digital content for every subject area and every class level, professional development for teachers and educational personnel, and a secure and stable school network infrastructure.
However, her presentation showed that so far, the development of human resources in Thailand is an unfinished project, even though several governments have stated an intention to pursue this aim.
Thanomporn said a big challenge in human resources improvement was the fact that 60 to 75 per cent of in-service basic education teachers were over 45 years old and resistance to change could still be found among late adopters and laggards.
It seemed not enough for Thailand to be increasing its ICT infrastructure and equipment, and she asked whether Thailand should first be studying the experience of the UK and Japan, before developing ICT in its education system.