Recent Public Initiatives for Multimedia Education in Schools

From ‘Learning in the Information Society – Action Plan for a European education initiative’ Communication to the European Parliament, the Council, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions (Communication presented by Mrs. Cresson and Mr. Bangemann, in agreement with Mr. Flynn). ( European Union, 1996)

Europe

Germany

The Ministry of Education, Science and Technology, with the support of Deutsche Telekom, has launched a three-year initiative called "Schulen Ans Netz" to connect 10,000 schools to on-line information services.

Denmark

Under its general action plan "INFO 2000 IT&T Action Plan", which was introduced in 1994, the government has made provision for connecting all primary and secondary schools to the national and international network by the year 2000.

Finland

In 1995, the Ministry of Education introduced a five-year plan entitled "Education, Training and Research in the Information Society: a national strategy" mainly designed to connect all schools and teaching institutions to information networks by the year 2000.

France

In 1995, the government identified 244 projects as being "in the public interest", some of which cover the fields of education. The Ministry of Education draws up a catalogue of digital resources and set up services in partnership with content and on-line service providers. Schools belonging to 13 Académies will be connected using the RENATER research network.

Italy

In October 1995, a decree from the Ministry of Education set up a task force to develop the use of technology in the education system and introduced an action plan to fit out 20% of primary schools and 30% of secondary schools with multimedia equipment and software by the year 2005.

United Kingdom

In November 1995 the government launched an initiative entitled "Superhighways in Education – The Way Forward" to connect schools and colleges to the information networks. This is the final step in a broad consultation process which commenced in April and has involved 400 organisations. 23 pilot projects will be allocated 12 million ECU.

Sweden

A national school network, Skoldatanätet, has been operational since 1994 using the Internet. Since 1995, every municipality has been obliged to prepare measures for the introduction and use of new technologies in the classroom. A bill has been debated in Parliament which would make the use of new technologies compulsory in the basic training of teachers. Teachers’ continuous training in this field will also be reinforced.

European Community

Numerous programmes such as the Telematic Applications programmer (1994-1998), Media II and Info 2000 (1996-1999), Socrates and Leonardo (1995 – 1999) give their support to research activities in the field of educational multimedia production and distribution, and in the training of teachers in this domain.

United States

In February 1996, President Clinton launched a national initiative "The Technology Literacy Challenge" to connect all American schools to the information highways by the year 2000. A "Technology Literacy Challenge Fund" of 1.6 billion ECU established for a five-year period will encourage partnerships on an equal footing between the states and private enterprises. A "Local Innovation Fund" with a budget of 39 million ECU a year will finance local initiatives under the same public/private partnership conditions.

Japan

In 1990, the Ministry of Education introduced a nine-year action plan to familiarise pupils with the use of the multimedia, equip all schools with multimedia hardware and software, train teachers to use multimedia in teaching and support the use of advanced technology. The MITI launched a "Programme for Info-Communications" in May 1994 with the main emphasis on developing multimedia applications in teaching (cf. the "100 schools network project").

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