Debated in Parliament on 10 Sep 2012.
Ms Ellen Lee asked the Minister for Education (a) if the Ministry will consider encouraging local Autonomous Universities (AUs) to make education resources available online and free of charge to keep up with open learning initiatives of other world-class universities; (b) if so, how will the Ministry encourage this; and (c) how much resources will be offered to enable AUs to do so.
MOE and our Universities recognise that universities around the world are piloting the use of free online course initiatives, such as Coursera (a Stanford spinoff) and edX (an MIT and Harvard initiative).
However, these initiatives are in the early stages and linked to the universities' broader plans to raise the quality and accessibility of teaching and learning. These should not be regarded as stand-alone initiatives.
Moreover, a university education is more than knowledge acquisition. The rich learning that occurs through face-to-face interaction among students, peers and professors goes beyond online teaching. Online platforms also cannot replicate the diverse experiences and rich interactions at the universities.
But we agree with Ms Lee that we need to harness the value of online learning, and more generally the skilful use of information communications technology, to enrich learning. Our Universities are, for instance, taking steps towards making their materials available online for free. Both NUS and NTU already offer some of their materials through the popular open courseware portal iTunes U on the Apple online store. This is an area where our Universities will continue to explore, in line with their strategic plans.
PAPERCUTS