From 2-5 September 1996, ICEF, the organisers of the growing "Online Educa" world-wide series of conferences, held the first Online Educa conference to be hosted in Soth East Asia, in the International Convention Centre in Singapore.
Singapore is increasingly held up to the West, not least by the UK Labour Party, as a paradigm of a "Stakeholder Society"; and it certainly sees itself as a "Learning Island". So what impressions did the Western conference organisers and speakers form of this society, viewed from the perspective of telematics-based learning? The following article is a personal view but reality-checked with a number of my colleagues at the conference.
The number of countries that do world-class IT Research and Development in Learning Technology is not large; but it now looks as though Singapore has joined them. Two examples caught my eye.
The "Intelligent Chinese Handwriting Tutor" has been created by the Apple-ISS Research Centre, a joint venture of Apple Computer and the Institute of Systems Science. It uses a handwriting-recognition module as the core of a multi-media learning environment for teaching Chinese handwriting. Personalised feedback on mistakes and tips for improvement appear in a prompt and conversational manner. This project won the Singapore "National Technology Award 1996" prize for most innovative application.
Another interesting project, which shows how that the Singapore work is right up to date, is the LiveCD System Development Kit. This allows the integration of Internet resources into an interactive CD - for example developers can use familiar PC multimedia tools such as Macromind Director to create their applications and then enhance them with just-in-time information from WWW, but displayed within the CD-ROM visual paradigm.
One of the most startling features of Singapore is how up with the flow the culture is. When I went to not a very large book shop in one of the main shopping malls, in a magazine rack ahead of me was a better display of Internet-technology magazines and journals than I am used to seeing in downtown Cambridge (Massachusetts) or Palo Alto. Not surprisingly, this was true only for technological and business works - copies of the great European novels were conspicuous by their absence.
As a further vignette, the local edition of Computerworld had an excellent article on "the yin and yang of knowledge management" with a detailed discussion comparing and contrasting the roles of
"the yin and yang of knowledge management"
Chief Knowledge Officers and Chief Learning Officers in the post-modern (that is, re-engineered) corporation. It is rumoured that certain Western speakers were seen rushing round the conference trying to get their hands on the article so as to appear as up to date as the locals!
While we were in Singapore, the Government announced their equivalent of the EU’s Fourth Framework programme. This Second Five Year Plan will pump 1.2 billion ecu into the R&D sector in the next five years from now, double the amount of their first Five Year Plan. A key thrust of the Plan is manpower development - "another 10000 engineers and 5000 researchers will be needed" says the National Science and Technology Board. The Plan was announced at the start of National TechMonth, an annual event which showcases Singapore’s technology. In related ceremonies, the teaching profession was honoured for its contribution to the economy. "Good teachers make the difference" says the Minister of Education. "They are a special class of people." Several speakers thought of some Western countries which could benefit from a similar approach!
Singapore universities are engaged in many advanced courses and research institutes. For example, the Institute of Microelectronics in conjunction with the Centre for Signal Processing at Nanyang Technological University is offering a 3-month advanced course in Digital Signal Processing. The National University of Singapore has an Internet Research and Development Unit (with an impressive brochure) boasting expertise groups in communications, Java, multimedia (including 3D), security, ATM and applications for the disabled. Three new Institutes are to be started at NUS including for Data Storage and Medical Informatics.
There are many non-Singapore universities, mostly UK (including Bradford, Hull, Leeds, London, Paisley, Sheffield Hallam, Surrey, Wales), Australian (numerous, including "hard sells" from Curtin, Griffith, La Trobe, Macquarie, South Australia, Sydney University of Technology), and lone Irish (National University) and Canadian (Ottawa) organisations, plus a few universities from the US (none well known), fishing in the pond of trying to attract Singapore students. Some have "satellite" campuses in Singapore, maybe offering a "junior college" mode of the first year or two in Singapore then transferring to the home campus. Others offer distance education (Thames Valley, Southern Queensland). A few offer online courses - like the University of Paisley with their Cyber Campus offered through a local commercial organisation. Many of the distance learning operations offer limited use of videoconferencing, email or "Fax-a-Professor".
Perhaps because Singapore is quite a small and densely populated island, or because of their "open all hours" mentality, the Singaporeans seemed to us to have only limited understanding of and interest in distance education. Somewhat surprisingly for an export-oriented culture, they also did not seem interested in exporting distance education from themselves to other countries. However, they were interested in online and multimedia-based education as a way of increasing the efficiency of educational delivery. (One presentation at the conference dealt with the issue of "lifting off" multimedia-based education from well-presented PowerPoint-assisted live lectures - my kind of person exactly.) Some commercial companies I met were very interested in acting as middlemen - re-exporters - of Western-sourced distance education.
As in so many other countries, strenuous efforts are being made to introduce Internet in schools. Unlike some other countries, the school children are extremely well-behaved!
The "Singapore ONE" network was announced in June. This is designed to be an island-wide broadband network offering videoconferencing, teleshopping, entertainment on demand and electronic libraries. As noted above in my analysis of distance education, there appears to be rather less education thrust on this network than is conventional on such networks. Perhaps the Singaporeans are just being more realistic.
An early development in the Singapore ONE system is the implementation of an Internet hub linking all the Internet providers. The completion date of the whole broadband network is rather vague, and seems to depend on what particular sub-network is being talked about. A pilot network is planned to be completed by 1998, and it is assumed that all island homes will be on a broadband network by early in the next millennium. Engineers seem relaxed about which technology will be used, at least in the interim, with both cable modem and ADSL trials being talked about as well as fibre to the kerb.
Although it is politically contentious to dwell on it within the region, there is an immense outflow of investment and knowhow from Singapore, which is rapidly upskilling the other countries surrounding this "Intelligent Island".
"upskilling the other countries surrounding this Intelligent Island"
As just one example, hard disc manufacturing is increasingly found not on the island but on Singapore-owned factories in Malaysia, Indonesia and even now China.
Malaysia is now making great strides forward, through its own efforts as well as through inwards investment. It hopes that its concept of the "Multimedia Supercorridor" round an area near the capital city will provide a kick-start to its fledgling broadband industry. Bill Gates is said to be interested. Malaysian Telecom is implementing video-conferencing services and is active in the university sector, with its own training college also.
The universities in Malaysia, and in some surrounding countries, especially the private universities, are increasingly teaching in English rather than the local languages - only in Indonesia has this trend not (yet?) started.
Even the formerly closed economy of Vietnam is now desperately pondering how to bring in the Internet, with at least five organisations already running pilot networks.
Singapore shows the way that a small state can gain leverage well beyond its population size by heavy investment in human capital. There are many lessons for the West to learn. However, whether one has to import the whole model or can pick and choose the parts one likes remains a challenge which I shall leave to politicians.
As an educator and researcher, I know that we shall hear a lot more about Singapore and it may not be too long before some of their universities are trading in Europe.
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