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Student-computer ratio. With reported student-computer ratios of 17:1, 12:1 and 7:1 at the primary, secondary and post secondary levels respectively, Singapore was one of the few countries/economies with high computer densities. (see Table A-1 to A-3 in Annex A).

High-speed processors. Singapore was one of the few countries/economies with very high proportions (83% to 96%) of school computers equipped with INTEL Pentium processors or other equivalent high-speed processors (see Table A-4 in Annex A).

Latest Operating System. Singapore had the highest proportions (92% or more) of school computers running on the latest operating systems such as Windows 95/98, Win NT, Mac-OS 7.5 or more updated versions (see Table A-5 in Annex A).

Availability of computer peripherals. Singapore schools indicated that they were equipped with 50% to 70% of a given list of peripherals which included laser printer, devices for digital image processing, colour printer, CD-writer, video projector and scanner. This put Singapore among the top countries/economies where computer peripherals were more easily available.

Staff Development

1. It was also found that Singapore was very advanced in the provisions for staff training. Singapore had the highest proportions of schools (81% at primary, 74% in secondary and 58% in post secondary) which indicated that they had provided training for all teachers in using ICT for educational purposes (see Table B-1 in Annex B).The study also showed that our teachers learned ICT skills through more avenues than in other countries/economies. The common avenues includedvarious ICT courses and also training given by the HODs/IT and schools’ ICT committee/workgroups. 

   School Planning and Administration

2. The study also revealed that a higher proportion of principals in Singapore were positive towards the integration of ICT in planning and administration when compared to many other participating countries/economies. This was evident in their formulation of various ICT-related policies and extended usage of ICT in administrative tasks. With such a positive outlook, every school leader would be steering the entire school towards the successful integration of ICT in teaching and learning.

   Curriculum

3. The study categorised pedagogical paradigms into the ‘traditional’ and ‘emerging’ paradigms. In the traditional paradigm, the students are passive receivers of knowledge while in the ‘emerging’ paradigm, the students are actively seeking and constructing knowledge. The findings indicated that our school principals favoured more ‘emerging’ ICT-related objectives than ‘traditional’ objectives in formulating their policies. In Singapore, opportunities for adopting ‘traditional’ and ‘emerging’ paradigms were equally high. Table C-1 in Annex C gives a detailed characterisation of the two paradigms.
4. In comparison to many other participating countries/economies, Singapore schools had higher expectations of their students in the learning of various ICT-skills. For example, Singapore students were expected to acquire a higher proportion of a given list of ICT skills, which included word processing, creating illustrations with graphics, communication via e-mail and searching/using electronic information.
5. In addition, higher proportions of schools in Singapore perceived that opportunities were available for students to learn ICT applications such as software data manipulation, hard/software real time data collection, and interactive encyclopaedia on CD-ROM.
6. Moreover, opportunities for students to participate in Internet-related activities were reported to be available in higher proportions of schools in Singapore than in many other countries/economies. These Internet-related activities included emailing, accessing information from external databases and designing/maintaining websites.

1. Tables on Findings in Infrastructure

    

   Table -1 Student-computer ratio in primary schools

   S/N	Country/Economy	Number of students to each computer
   1	Canada	11
   2	Finland	16
   3	Singapore	17
   4	New Zealand	20
   5	Iceland	21
   6	Norway	23
   6	Israel	23
   8	France	38
   9	Slovenia	41
   10	Cyprus	50
   11	China Hong Kong	53
   12	Japan	59
   13	Chinese Taipei	74
   14	Italy	158

   Table -2 Student-computer ratio in secondary schools

   S/N	Country/Economy	Number of students to each computer
   1	Canada	9
   2	New Zealand	10
   3	Denmark	12
   3	Singapore	12
   5	Finland	14
   5	Norway	14
   7	Luxembourg	16
   8	Israel	18
   9	Iceland	19
   10	Japan	21
   11	France	24
   12	Belgium-French	30
   12	Italy	30
   14	Chinese Taipei	35
   15	Hungary	36
   15	China Hong Kong	36
   17	Slovenia	40
   18	South Africa	42
   19	Czech Republic	44
   20	Thailand	52
   21	Bulgaria	81
   22	Russian Federation	127
   23	Lithuania	134
   24	Cyprus	210

   Table -3 Student-computer ratio in post secondary schools

   S/N	Country/Economy	Number of students to each computer
   1	Norway	6
   2	Singapore	7
   3	Canada	8
   4	France	11
   5	Chinese Taipei	15
   5	Israel	15
   7	Luxembourg	16
   8	Iceland	17
   8	Czech Republic	17
   10	Cyprus	22
   11	Slovenia	23
   12	Slovak Republic	24
   12	Italy	24
   14	Belgium-French	33
   15	Japan	34
   16	South Africa	35
   17	China Hong Kong	36
   18	Latvia	53
   19	Bulgaria	74
   20	Russian Federation	132
   21	Lithuania	137

   Table -4 Average percentage of computers equipped with INTEL Pentium or other equivalent high speed processors.

   	Percentage of computers equipped with INTEL Pentium processors or equivalent
   Country/Economy #	Primary	Secondary	Post Secondary
   Belgium-French	-	35	46
   Bulgaria	-	12	10
   Canada	52	48	49
   China Hong Kong	91	84	87
   Chinese Taipei	72	63	72
   Cyprus	48	51	41
   Czech Republic	-	32	41
   Denmark	-	45	-
   Finland	53	57	-
   France	-	45	53
   Hungary	-	48	-
   Iceland	67	71	86
   Israel	51	42	51
   Italy	73	52	58
   Japan	44	43	47
   Latvia	-	-	47
   Lithuania	-	32	27
   Luxembourg	-	75	73
   New Zealand	50	53	-
   Norway	39	48	57
   Russian Federation	-	15	15
   Singapore	93 (1)*	96 (1)*	83 (3)*
   Slovak Republic	-	-	12
   Slovenia	64	61	58
   South Africa	-	40	39
   Thailand	-	52	-

   * The number in the brackets indicates the rank order of the percentage in each column, with "1" denoting the highest percentage among all the participating countries/economies.

   # The Netherlands, one of the participating countries/economies, had a special status in the project. At the start of SITES M1, a national monitoring of ICT was already underway in the country. As a result, a separate data collection for SITES M1 was not possible. However, the international report made reference to some statistics from the Netherlands’ monitoring process.

   Table -5 Average percentage of computers installed with Windows 95/98,Win NT, Mac-OS 7.5 or higher.

   	Percentage of computers installed with Windows 95/98,Win NT, Mac-OS 7.5 or higher
   Country/Economy	Primary	Secondary	Post Secondary
   Belgium-French	-	40	53
   Bulgaria	-	15	16
   Canada	58	55	55
   China Hong Kong	95	81	86
   Chinese Taipei	73	73	79
   Cyprus	55	57	32
   Czech Republic	-	47	55
   Denmark	-	53	-
   Finland	56	55	-
   France	-	47	53
   Hungary	-	46	-
   Iceland	69	76	81
   Israel	49	44	53
   Italy	77	57	65
   Japan	49	42	50
   Latvia	-	-	66
   Lithuania	-	44	41
   Luxembourg	-	69	71
   New Zealand	58	57	-
   Norway	52	60	61
   Russian Federation	-	17	17
   Singapore	96 (1)*	95 (1)*	92 (1)*
   Slovak Republic	-	-	40
   Slovenia	82	79	82
   South Africa	-	49	45
   Thailand	-	54	-

   * The number in the brackets indicates the rank order of the percentage in each column, with "1" denoting the highest percentage among all the participating countries/economies.

2.  

Table on Findings in Staff Development

Table -1 Percentage of schools which indicated that training was conducted for all teachers to use ICT for educational purposes.

* The number in the brackets indicates the rank order of the percentage in each column, with "1" denoting the highest percentage among all the participating countries/economies.

D.

E.

Table on Findings in Curriculum

Table -1 Characteristics of traditional paradigm and emerging paradigm

 

Actor	Education in the Industrial Society (the traditional paradigm)	Education in the Information Society (the emerging paradigm)
School	Isolated from society	Integrated in society
	Most information on school functioning confidential	Information openly available
Teacher	Initiator of instruction	Help students to find appropriate instructional path
	Whole class teaching	Guidance of students’ independent learning
	Evaluates student	Helps student to evaluate own progress
	Low emphasis on communication skills	High emphasis on communication skills
Student	Mostly passive	More active
	Learns most at school	Learning at school and outside school
	Hardly any teamwork	Much teamwork
	Takes questions from books or teachers	Asks questions
	Learns answers to questions	Finds answers to questions
	Low interest in learning	High interest
Parent	Hardly actively involved in learning process	Very active
	No steering of instruction	Co-steering
	No life-long learning model	Parents provide model

 

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