Since 1980, a lot of money has been invested in information & communication technology (ICT) in education. And the results show it. Yet there are still some major differences between schools in their use of ICT. The Education Council wishes to encourage the use of digital learning resources.
3 September 2008
Increased use of ICT offers an excellent way to continue improving education. School books would be ‘free': schools receive a fixed amount per pupil that they have to spend on learning resources. The Education Council considers it a good time to encourage schools to use ICT more.
Using ‘open' learning resources: freely accessible and no copyrights
Schools need to use open digital learning resources more. ‘Open' means that they are freely accessible via the internet, that they are not subject to copyright (or only to a minor extent), and that teachers can build on them to make them more suitable for their own education goals. There are already a good number of examples of the successful use of open digital learning resources in higher education. They make the education more appealing and make the teaching profession more interesting.
Develop an open, end-to-end course of teaching for one of the core subjects
The Education Council believes that the Minister could offer schools and teachers an encouraging example by having an end-to-end course of teaching (from three to eighteen years of age) developed for one of the core subjects, for instance languages or maths. It would be up to schools themselves whether they decided to use this course of teaching. What's important, though, is to lead by example.