Malaysia Education Ministry allocates RM15mil for ICT studies

The Higher Education Ministry of Malaysia will allocate RM15mil to train 4,000 students in information and communication technology (ICT) in 2007.

The Ministry has set up the first industry-based professional certification programme, 3P in partnership with Prestariang Systems Sdn Bhd. It offers a wide range of IT professional certifications with multinationals like Microsoft, Cisco Systems and Macromedia. The ministry presented certificates to the 15 top students out of the 1,000 trained in 2006 under the programme.They are from UiTM, Universiti Malaya, International Islamic University Malaysia, Universiti Malaysia Sarawak and Universiti Sains Malaysia.

World Bank supports Indonesia’s teacher improvement programme

The World Bank Board has recently approved USD 86 million in support of the Government’s plan to improve the skills and performance of teachers, widely recognised as a key challenge to improving education standards in Indonesian schools.

The Better Education through Reformed Management and Universal Teacher Upgrading Project (BERMUTU), at a broader level, supports the Government’s December 2005 Teacher Law which aims to improve the qualifications and classroom performance of Indonesia’s 2.7 million teachers, who make up at least 70 per cent of the country’s civil service. The programme is expected to address critical challenges in Indonesia’s education system, reflected most sharply in recent studies which show Indonesian students score less in scholastic tests like maths and reading. The programme will support reforms for university-based teacher education, build capacity of the national accreditation board, provide incentives to universities to train teachers through distance learning and scholarship programs. Teacher absenteeism is another reason students do not learn.

New Zealand to continue collaboration in education with Malaysia

The New Zealand Government is keen to continue its collaboration with Malaysia in education with focus on development of ICTs in schools.

The government will continue to support and develop Malaysia through education. The National secondary school is among five primary and secondary schools selected for the e-Learning programme under the KPerak e-Learning Cluster, which is developed by KPerak Inc Corporation, Innovation New Zealand Education (INZed), the Education Ministry and Perak state government. The New Zealand Trade and Enterprise has signed MoU Perak state government on mutual beneficial and partnership initiatives focusing on the biotechnology sector.

IT Growth Rate Peaks in PRC and India

The latest research published by Government Insights – an IDC company – expects that governments and government organisations within the Asia/Pacific region, excluding Japan (APEJ), will continue to spend steadily on IT services and products with a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 7.9% from 2007-2011. This IT growth is largely driven by the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and India, which together account for more than half of the total.

The study provides latest forecasts for the IT spending in the public sector including government, education, and healthcare – from 2007 to 2011 – and provides IT spending across geographies, broad IT segments, and specific IT categories.

The overall IT expenditure by broad segments will continue to be largely driven by hardware, although a slight decline is expected in this expenditure from 57.5% in 2007 to 54% in 2011. Expenditure on services is expected to increase steadily with a similar trend for software expenditure during this period.

IT investment in the APEJ Government sector will remain strong, and is expected to account for USD19.5 billion of the total public sector IT expenditure by 2011. It will still be the largest of the 3 public sector segments with a CAGR of 8.5%.