ICT Education in Malaysia

Is ICT is the solution to everything eh? The silver bullet? Install ICT and we will get a blossoming economy beyond our wildest imaginations. Get real. Or so the Star reports that there should be a review of non-ICT promoting curriculum.
Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak has called for a review of the school curriculum if it does not serve the purpose of promoting Information Communication Technology (ICT) usage in schools.
He said the curriculum should reflect the desire to produce thinkers and incorporate the use of ICT as a means to harness the wealth of information available on the information highway.
And what would serve this best? I bet you people know.
That’s right, at least for me I think that the use of Free and Open Source Software, Open Content, and Open Standards would be the enabler for this. These are the catalyst in the 21st century for a Free Culture.
Why? Because it promotes the sharing of information. Collaboration. Not just ICT related but all encompassing, and it does not limit it self to one person.
Najib also said that ICT must be part of the student’s living and working culture and he asked schools to find ways to make the Internet easily accessible to students even after school session.
Well for starters, people need to understand that the tides are changing. Censoring bloggers? No no, that won’t work. Get realistic, the old need to not only understand the Internet, but also embrace how it can empower people. Do not fear it.
But how do you make those reading materials available after school session? Especially when broadband is so poor in the country. How about making it freely available on a CD or a book? That is what people have done with the Wikipedia project.
Najib said that teachers in smart schools must adopt ICT as a lifestyle, speak English and exhibit their capacity for analytical thinking if they expected these qualities from their students.
What does ICT have to do with English? Sure most people doing ICT speak English. But there is a lot of work that has been done in to translate software into Malay language, how about picking up those efforts and rolling them out into schools. Especially when the software is free, reliable and good software. The cost savings are immense.
Sure ICT can help, but you limit its potential by not understanding how you can release its true potential.