Experience the Digital Education Revolution

Since the election of the Rudd Government nearly one year ago, there has been an intense focus on the importance of students’ access to digital tools and information that enable them to become actively engaged citizens in a technologically driven world.

The Digital Education Revolution

The Australian Government is investing $1.2 billion over five years (2008–2012) to improve students’ access to world-class ICT (information and communications technology). Key funding elements of the Digital Education Revolution include:

• The $1.1 billion (over five years) NSCF (National Secondary School Computer Fund), providing grants of up to $1 million for schools to assist them to provide for new or upgraded ICT for secondary students in Years 9 to 12.
• The FCS (Fibre Connections to Schools) initiative, a contribution of up to $100 million to support the development of FTTP (fibre-to-the-premises) broadband connections to Australian schools.
• $32.6 million over two years to supply students and teachers with online curriculum tools and resources to support the national curriculum and conferencing facilities for specialist subjects such as languages.
• Professional development for new and continuing teachers to ensure they have access to training in the use of ICT that enables them to enrich student learning.
   

Multiple applications and benefits

The Digital Education Revolution will also be instrumental to the roll-out of other key Government initiatives in education and training through the opportunities it offers for facilitating:

• a nationally consistent curriculum
• delivery of language and other specialist subjects
• the movement of students between education organizations, jurisdictions and sectors
• increased student engagement, for example, through the use of interactive technologies
• customized learning experiences
• reinforcement of literacy and numeracy skills
• collaboration, by teachers and students
• partnerships with parents
• creation, discovery and access to diverse curriculum materials
• improved administrative efficiency
   

Impetus for a revolution

In most other facets of society, ICT is becoming central to the process of how things get done. Production processes and service industries have been transformed by the innovative use of ICT. Overall, the same is not true of education. In spite of many examples of leading-edge use of ICT in education, the general picture is that, while ICT is pervasive in students’ private lives and in employment, it is not central to the actual delivery of education in schools.

Key ICT challenges

Computer penetration and access to broadband is highly variable across Australia’s schools. There is no consistent approach to provision of content or access to educational tools. Furthermore, ICT support structures for schools and teacher confidence to use ICT in their teaching practice is varied across Australia.

Central to the Australian Government’s vision for the Digital Education Revolution is that getting the right implementation of ICT in education is genuinely important for Australia’s future. Making effective use of ICT in Australian education requires:

• ubiquitous computing capacity;
• high-speed, ubiquitous telecommunications;
• high-quality, nationally accessible content (and collaboration tools); and
• well-trained teachers.

Access to computers for senior secondary school students and high-speed broadband connections are expensive and critical prerequisite starting points to the Digital Education Revolution.

National secondary school computer fund — size of task

There are 2,900 secondary schools across Australia with students in Years 9 to 12 delivering education to approximately 1 million students. The NSCF will distribute $1.1 billion across these schools between the 2008 and 2012 financial years.

Through the NSCF, the Australian Government is providing funding to education authorities to purchase computers. It is not purchasing computers in its own right. The objective of Round One of the NSCF was to improve the provision of computers in schools where the computer to student ratio is 1:8 or worse to a target ratio of 1:2. Round One resulted in 896 schools receiving funding for 116,820 computers.