Singapore building 'schools of the future'

It's not new news that Asia is pouring money into education technology to fuel the next generation of economic growth. As if to prove the point, Singapore's Ministry of of Education (MOE) is teaming up with various international businesses to develop 15 "Schools of the Future" by 2015, reports Today Online.

The MOE has created a special $500 million fund to help integrate interactive digital media into high schools and to develop an innovative learning environment.

"The MOE will come in very strongly to support the schools in realising their vision; we will be prepared to give them a lot more resources," said the Ministry's permanent secretary Lim Chuan Poh.

"We can bring to them the overseas thinkers, let them have conversations; we can bring to them partnerships with industries; we will certainly support them with our consultants from the Education Technology Division to help them situate their content and their pedagogy on technology platforms."

Gone will be the thick textbooks students currently tote around because students will all be connected through wireless Internet connections. Science experiments may be conducted through online simulations, and learning from virtual simulations like Second Life, will become the norm.

The MOE is partnering with Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard and ST Engineering, to name a few.