Every Secondary School Student to Get a Laptop/Tablet by 2021; HBL to be Conducted at Least 2 Days a Month

By
Shawn Ambrose
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Whenever you make an “In my day speech” to your child or grandchild, you’d usually remind them that you had no smartphones when you were a teenager, and how the only way to pass the time was to actually socialise with others.

In response, your child or grandchild would typically roll their eyes, before grabbing their smartphone to play Among Us. 

Well, now, there’s another thing you can add to this speech.

Every Secondary School Student to Get a Laptop/Tablet by 2021

All secondary school students will receive a personal laptop or tablet for learning by the end of next year, according to The Straits Times.

This will enable every student to participate in home-based learning (HBL), which will soon be an integral part of their curriculum.

The target for the move had initially been set for 2028, but the Covid-19 pandemic accelerated the process.

As Education Minister Lawrence Wong said on Tuesday (29 Dec), the move to full HBL during the circuit breaker had illustrated the need to make students more self-directed and independent learners.

And parents need not have concerns over the affordability of their child’s learning device, which will be a tablet or laptop, as students can use their Edusave accounts to pay for them.

Students receive regular annual Edusave contributions, and with the one-off $200 Edusave top-up that was doled out in April, students will definitely have enough money to pay for their personal learning devices.

Students from lower-income households will also receive more subsidies so they won’t have to pay for these devices out of their own pockets.

HBL to be Conducted at Least 2 Days a Month

The move, of course, is to facilitate HBL, which will take place at least two days a month starting from the third term of next year.

HBL will only be conducted for secondary school and junior college students, according to ST. 

As for primary school students, the Ministry of Education (MOE) will start with a small-scale pilot involving five primary schools to ascertain how these devices will impact younger students.

Of course, giving a laptop or tablet to teenage students and expecting every single one of them to use it solely for studying during HBL is optimistic at best.

So, to prevent students from misusing their devices, device management software will be installed on each device.

This will track how students use their devices, as well as control how it’s used.

In conjunction with this move, MOE will also ramp up cyber wellness education.

Keeping Social Mobility Alive

In June, Senior Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam explained that the move to bring forward HBL learning was one of the ways the government, schools, and the community are working together to keep social mobility alive.

The ensures that every student has the opportunity to excel regardless of their background.

As Minister Tharman said, social mobility has been a key part of the country’s identity, and is the reason we’ve been able to make so much progress since the 1960s.

Featured Image: huntergol hp / Shutterstock.com

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Shawn Ambrose
Email: [email protected]