| |
Home
News Centre
Popular
Questions
Publications
FoI
Publications Scheme
Research
Consultations
Our
Strategy
Speeches
Statistics
Inside
the Department
Cymraeg/Welsh
Links
Contact Us
Help
User guide
|
|
DIGITAL LEARNING REVOLUTION FOR SCHOOLS - CLARKE
09 January 2003Education and Skills Secretary Charles Clarke today announced a package of ICT measures for schools and colleges to drive forward the digital learning revolution. In a keynote speech at the BETT show at Olympia, London he said the measures will enhance traditional teaching practices and embed the central role of ICT in raising standards. The package will help develop teaching skills and practice across all education sectors, extend access to online digital resources, and continue investment for an effective ICT infrastructure.The measures, to be funded by the substantial investment in educational ICT announced in the spending review allocations in December will include:
• An extra £280m for e-learning credits. With the funding already announced this provides £100m each year for the next three years to give schools access to online curriculum materials.
• An extra £92m to develop College Online
• £8m for Online training for teachers next year.
• An extra £195m to provide more laptops for teachers over the next 3 years.
• An extra £287m to provide all schools with broadband capability by 2006 this is on top of the £71m already announced for next year. Mr Clarke said:“Some people have contested the value of ICT in teaching and learning. I challenge that view. We have spent over £1bn creating an ICT infrastructure in schools, colleges and libraries, stimulating the content market and training teachers. We are now beginning to reap the rewards for that massive investment as effective use of digital resources in teaching and learning is making a difference to raising standards. “We know that a choice of innovative and professional digital resources helps transform classroom practice. That’s why I am very pleased to announce that Curriculum Online is now fully open for business. The portal means a revolution in the way teachers can search, compare, select and share digital resources. We are making £300m available between 2003-6 as e-learning credits to ensure access to paid for as well as free materials. The initiative has been developed as a true public private partnership.“We are now extending the concept of Curriculum Online for schools to the post 16 sector by developing College Online. The post 16 sector via College Online will also soon have access to a much wider range of high quality, learner-focused online content. “I also welcome the announcement by the Culture Minister Tessa Jowell today approving the development of the BBC Digital Curriculum. It is an important step in the drive to offer the widest choice of quality teaching and learning materials to schools. The BBC’s media rich resources will complement the Department for Education and Skills' Curriculum Online service to create a balanced, dynamic market for top quality priced and free digital learning materials for teachers. “We are already helping over 100,000 teachers to gain access to a laptop through our Laptops for Teachers’ scheme and we now want to extend this so that by 2006 we will have provided over two thirds of teachers with personal access to a computer. We will also support the continuing professional development of teachers through providing further online professional development materials in an increasing range of subjects. We are also helping a substantial number of tutors gain access to a laptop or computer through our computers for FE tutors scheme.“It is also important that we continue to improve the infrastructure that we have created over the last 4 years. The Prime Minister has already announced that we will provide funding for Broadband connections in all schools by 2006 but I am announcing today that the Regional Broadband consortia will interconnect through the JANET network ensuring that all schools, colleges and universities are connected through a single backbone - providing for the first time a truly national education network.“We have placed ICT at the heart of educational transformation because it enhances both the process and the product of education, empowering learners and helping teachers and lecturers innovate in the classroom. Today’s measures will help teachers be creative and embed best practice for all.”
Editor's Notes
This press notice relates to England
1.The Curriculum Online Portal is http://www.curriculumonline.gov.uk 2.In his keynote speech the Secretary of State outlined how money announced in the December spending review will be used and detailed the specific spending funds for ICT. He said that funding for new information communications technology, including matched funding from local authorities, will rise to £920 million by 2005-06.
3.The funding will connect all schools to the Internet at broadband speeds, deliver digital resources into the classroom and lecture theatres through projects such as Curriculum Online, ensure that even more teachers have personal access to computers, and help the new school workforce of teachers and teaching assistants use new technology to deliver higher standards. A £14 million boost in 2005-06 will support high tech learning for adults through the UK Online Centres. 4. Research shows that pupils who use ICT in the classroom get better results than those that don’t. This is shown to be true across all abilities, communities and subjects tested and underpins the need to embed ICT across the curriculum and in every key stage. Recent independent research looked at the effect of ICT on pupil attainment. The ImpaCT2 study found that there is a positive “ICT effect” on test results. The key areas where there was found to be a statistically significant positive relationship were English at KS2, science at KS3, and science and design & technology at KS4 (where high ICT users in the sample outperformed low ICT users by an average of 0.56 of a GCSE grade and 0.41 of a GCSE grade, respectively). Case studies of 15 of the sample schools have also been published to demonstrate how the schools used ICT in the curriculum. This and other research demonstrates the way in which ICT is making a real contribution to some schools’ achievements and ways of working and illustrates the true potential of ICT. The ImpaCT2 reports can be found at http://www.becta.org.uk/research/impact2/index.cfm 5. The Prime Minister has committed to broadband connectivity for all schools and Inter-connection of the Regional Broadband Consortia using JANET, to create for the first time a national education network by March 2003. This will enable teachers and pupils to access digital resources and collaborate without the frustrations of incompatibility and poor communications links. The JANET network will also be extended to include adult and community institutions, and thus to ensure a coherent ICT infrastructure across the post-16 sector and smooth transition to SuperJANET 5 in 2005-06 with increased network capacity.6. 100,000 teachers have been helped in gaining personal access to computers. The Laptops for Teachers’ initiative will be extended to increase personal access to a computer to more than two-thirds of teachers in schools.7. There will be further development of the skills of lecturers and staff working in Adult and Community learning through a Staff Development Programme through the National Learning Network.8. Following a successful pilot in the summer term, there will be a national roll-out of online continuing professional development (CPD) in Key Stage 1 and 2 literacy and numeracy, and a range of subjects at KS3, with staged roll-out commencing in May, and full national rollout next September. This expansion of the online CPD project will result in a comprehensive online portfolio of professional development materials to embed ICT in teachers subject teaching in KS 1-3 .9.National roll-out of the new Strategic Leadership of ICT programme will reach well over a third of all headteachers over the period 2003-06. Led by the National College for School Leadership, in partnership with BECTa and NAACE, the programme will equip up to 10,000 headteachers over the three years with the skills to place ICT at the centre of their strategies for school improvement.10. At BETT Mr Clarke visited the National College for School Leadership stand where he launched the online communities project, talk2learn. With a remit for the professional development of leaders in schools talk2learn is an innovative environment for online learning, problem solving and decision making.
Contact Details
Public Enquiries 0870 000 2288, info@dcsf.gsi.gov.uk
Press Notice 2003/0003
|
|
|
|
