"ICT for Education Leaders: From Vision to Reality", the pilot offering of a potential new World Bank core course on ICT and Education, organized by the World Bank Institute (WBI) and the Korean Education Research and Information Service (KERIS), with partnership support from infoDev and UNESCO-Bangkok, concluded today in Seoul, Korea.

The main focus of this new week-long course was on how a country’s education system and policy can be enriched through the applications of ICT.  Thirty-one education leaders representing ministries of education and civil society organizations in fifteen developing countries participated in the course, which was organized to help policymakers address the imperative that traditional, formal education systems are facing by raising awareness and understanding about essential elements of an effective application of ICT.

The course reviewed and explored ICT use in relation to education policy, relevant strategies, and best practice, with a focus on helping those in the early stages of planning or implementing programs that integrate ICT into educational initiatives.

Countries represented at the course included Afghanistan; Albania; Bangladesh; Bhutan; Cambodia; Eritrea; India; Lao PDR; Madagascar; Mongolia; Nepal; Pakistan; Sri Lanka; Tanzania; and Tunisia. 

In addition to discussions and knowledge sharing related to ICT use in education in these countries, numerous examples and perspectives were shared through a series of discussion, presentations and field visits, based on the rich experience of Korea in introducing various e-learning initiatives over the past decade.

Bruno Laporte, the manager of the World Bank Institute's Knowledge for Development program, began the course by placing week's proceedings in the context of larger planning around preparing countries to better compete in the emerging global knowledge-based economy.   Dr. Gwang Jo Kim, Vice Minister of Korea's Ministry of Education and Human Resource Development, then proposed a series of question to help guide the week's discussions.  ICT, he noted, is "one of the most important pillars of a global knowledge-based society, [and] will play a key role in improving education and economy".  Over the last five years, he noted, Korea has averaged annual investments of over $500bn in ICT and education, and the introduction of ICT has been an important part of education reform in Korea over the past decade.

Additional presentations were made on national ICT and education initiatives in Singapore, the Philippines, and Jordan, and some notable inernational public-private partnerships; UNESCO and infoDev shared lessons from their recent work with policymakers and on monitoring and evaluation issues.

For more information about this event, please see the World Bank Institute's related event web site at http://go.worldbank.org/30G237S8O0