The following is issued on behalf of the Education Commission:

At the meeting today (Monday), the Education Commission (EC) discussed the 5-year strategy on IT in education, which was revised by the Government taking into account public views collected during consultation.

The Chairman of EC, Mr Antony Leung said: "IT in education plays a very important role in the development of quality education into the 21st century. We agreed that the vision in promoting IT in education is :

• to make our school education more dynamic and stimulating;

• to turn our schools into innovative learning institutions;

• to enable our students to become more imaginative, creative, and better-equipped for the information age;

• to develop in our students a capability for independent life-long learning; and

• to strengthen the global linkage and global outlook of our students, schools and the education community."

"We appreciate the Government's efforts to provide more IT training for teachers; enhance the accessibility of all students to computers; and provide more technical assistance to schools according to their IT readiness."

"We urge the Government to continue to enhance teachers and students' access to IT and connectivity to the Internet; to provide diversity and flexibility for schools in the development and implementation of IT-based initiatives; and to promote co-operation among schools, tertiary institutions, IT industries and the community in general in the application of IT in education.

"We are glad that the Government has endorsed an earlier decision by the EC to set up a sub-committee to advise on any fine-tuning of this strategy in the light of experience gained in the implementation of the strategy, and advances in technology and other new developments," Mr Antony Leung said.

The EC also noted the need to develop proposals for a system to assess the performance of students at various stages of education, and will examine the issue further in the course of the review of academic structure, in consultation with the education sector.

Ends/Monday, October 19, 1998