S'pore school teaches 'angklung' and computers

By Endy M. Bayuni

SINGAPORE (JP): The distinct sound of bamboo being shaken from angklung hailed our arrival at the school yard. As the 20 or so fourth graders played Somewhere Over the Rainbow and Eidelweiss with the traditional Indonesian bamboo musical instruments, the principle of Yio Chu Kang Primary School and members of her teaching staff greeted the visitors from Indonesia.

The school visit actually was intended to showcase Singapore's incorporation of IT (information technology) into its education system. But the angklung reception illustrates the importance Singapore schools place on the arts, including traditional music, even as the government pushes schools to make computers part and parcel of the teaching and learning process from as early as the first grade.

This particular case shows tradition, an Indonesian one at that, can blend with even the most modern technology in schools.

"Angklung is very popular here," Toh Boon Keng, the proud principle, said.

Taught as a cocurricular subject, not every pupil is allowed to study angklung. Like the choir, those who performed during the visit were selected through auditions.

The angklung orchestra at the school has played for various local events and organizations. "Their next performance will be for the upcoming APEC meeting," Toh said, referring to the meeting of education ministers of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation next month.

Toh takes particular pride in teaching the arts, which she says is part of the creative thinking process for children.

The school also teaches the performing arts, including dance and drama, and visual arts. And Toh is looking into organizing Chinese orchestra classes.

And the school also can be proud of the superb physical education it offers pupil.

"Fandi Ahmad was one of our students," she said, referring to the famed Singapore soccer star who played in Indonesia in the 1980s.

But while art lessons are optional, computer classes are compulsory for all pupils. Not only that. Students also are increasingly using computers as tools in their studies.

Marking its 50th anniversary this year, Yio Chu Kang Primary School was selected by the Ministry of Information and the Arts to showcase the government's Master Plan for IT in Education for the group of visiting Indonesian journalists.

Launched in 1997 at a cost of some S$2 billion in the first five years, the government's plan calls for increasing the use of computers in the learning and teaching process in schools. By 2002, the government hopes that all schools will be fully networked. More specifically, the goal is to have one computer for every two teachers, and one computer for every two students at all primary and secondary schools.

Schools also have been told to ensure that students spend about 30 percent of their entire curriculum time using or working with computers. And there is even talk of a laptop scheme by which portable PCs would become part of a pupil's school supplies.

Yio Chu Kang is already well on its way to meeting the targets of the master plan, thanks in no small measure to generous government grants to help the school buy the computers.

The school has "three-and-a-half" computer laboratories with 40 PCs each. With class sizes limited to a maximum of 40 students, that means each pupil has a computer to themselves during the lab.

Beginning in the fifth grade, students also are given access to the Internet.

Many pupils, however, have already mastered the basics of the computer and the Internet before receiving formal lessons at school. Most households in Singapore have two PCs, and the cost of access to the Internet through home phones has been cut to affordable levels.

The early part of the master plan has been geared toward educating teachers, rather than students, about how to use computer.

"It has not been easy," Toh admitted, noting that children are much more adaptable to information technology than adults.

Besides learning various computer application programs, teachers are taught about the uses and advantages of the Internet, which offers them abundant resources to tap from.

Singapore certainly looks the most prepared in Asia, if not the world, for the advent of e-business, which many believe will revolutionize not only the way people conduct business, but also eventually how they run their lives.

As if to confirm its lead, the city-state this month hosts eFestival Asia 2000, the chief attraction of which is the eLearning showcase.

The interactive sessions, which the Raffles Institution and the Raffles Girls School -- two of Singapore's top secondary schools -- are intended to show students that Internet learning can be rewarding and fun.

And in keeping with the official motto that Every Singaporean Matters, the poor and "technophobes" will be assisted in mastering computers and the Internet. Earlier this month, the government announced it would spend S$25 million over the next three years to bridge the "digital divide", according to the Straits Times newspaper.

The Master Plan for IT in Education is part of the government's program to implement its mission statement in education, which is to Mold the Future of the Nation.

"IT literacy will be a basic competency in tomorrow's workplace," states a Ministry of Education book which outlines its vision of Learning to Think, Thinking to Learn.

Rear Admiral Teo Chee Hean, Singapore's minister of education and second minister for defense, said the rapid development of the Internet and multimedia technology had opened up new possibilities for making learning interesting.

Teo recalled that in his primary school days, his whole world was the school yard, including the soccer field, which seemed very large at that time.

"If I go back there now, of course, it looks so small. But now with the Internet entering schools, a child's world is a lot larger. You can go beyond the school compound.

"You can communicate with students from other parts of the world," the former Singapore navy chief of staff said.