A group of 45 policymakers and planners from the Ministry of Education in Malaysia, together with representatives from the School of Educational Studies at the Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM), recently gathered together at the Paradise Sandy Bay Resort in Penang to initiate use of the ICT in Education Toolkit as part of its on-going national planning process for ICT use in education.
The week-long National Capacity Building Seminar Using the Online ICT in Education Toolkit for Policymakers, Planners and Practitioners , co-sponsored by the Ministry of Education, USM and the UNESCO Regional Office for Education (Bangkok), opened with an address by Dato' Hon Choon Kim, Deputy Minister of Education, which stressed that the widespread use of ICT's in Malaysian schools is just a tool to achieve larger educational goals and objectives, designed to help the nation achieve developed country status by 2020.
The ICT in Education Toolkit for Policymakers, Planners and Practitioners, jointly supported and developed by infoDev, UNESCO and other partners, is designed to assist education policy makers, planners and practitioners in the process of harnessing the potential of ICTs to meet educational goals and targets efficiently and effectively. It includes particular attention to the following key areas: Mapping the present situation in terms of national goals, educational context, ICTs in education, and the dynamics of change Identifying educational areas for ICT intervention and formulating corresponding ICT-in-education policies Planning for implementation of infrastructure, hardware, contentware, and personnel training Planning for electronic content Consolidating implementation plans and their financial and managerial implications into one master plan Assessing implementation, effectiveness and impact of ICT interventions and subsequent adjustments and follow-up actionsMalaysia is the third country to use version 2.0 of the Toolkit, following on recent launches in Indonesia (May) and Brunei (June). These workshops were coordinated by UNESCO's Regional Office for Education in Bangkok, which will be supporting additional country planning workshops in Asia using the Toolkit through the end of 2007. Version 2.0 of the Toolkit was jointly launched by infoDev and UNESCO in April 2007 as part of a larger partnership between the two organizations exploring the effective use of ICTs in education around the world.
Malaysia has actively promoted the integration of ICTs into its education system to achieve a variety of educational objectives, and is considered a regional leader in the implementation of computers and the Internet in schools.
For more information about ICT use in Education in Malaysia, please see:
- Malaysia ICT/education country profile on the UNESCO Bangkok web site
- Malaysian Smart School program
- Malaysian Ministry of Education (in Bahasa Malaysia)
For more information about the infoDev-UNESCO ICT in Education Toolkit, please see:
- ICT in Education Toolkit web site
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