Education has advanced from nib to mouse in the last few decades - from classrooms of inkwell desks to a world of electronic-learning. Let's not ponder on why this "progress" coincides with much evidence of regression in school performance results in many Western countries. My concern is with how "e-education" can become a more effective tool. We're not quite there yet in most subjects, although audio-visual technology has been of great use in teaching languages.

Daniel Lai, president of the Computer Society in Hong Kong, wants to see the city transformed into an "e-education hub" of China. His society, along with other info-tech associations, has called on the government to move in this direction.

But to become a genuine "e-learning hub", Hong Kong must do something exceptional. The real need is for much better educational software. I have purchased various items of "learning software" - and none was of inestimable value.

The software gambit, at least for children, has been to make learning "fun" with animated cartoons. I bought one of these software packages for my two girls that explores world geography. They liked it, but when I asked them questions about continents, countries or capitals, they could recall almost nothing.

One fundamental principle of education is that teaching needs to assess what a student knows and to revise weak points. If that sounds like rote learning, do not reject the concept. Many teachers in the West argue that "creative" approaches are the ONLY ways to learn and scorn memorization as "Gradgrind". This catchword, originating from a Dickens' novel, has been used to undermine the fundamentals of education, argues Chris Woodhead, former chief inspector of schools in England. He believes the soft-liberal ideology of many in the teaching establishment has stunted an entire generation by ignoring such basics as literacy and numeracy.

When my two daughters were very young, I would give them computer sheets to study; then they filled in answer sheets. They repeated the process until achieving perfection. My humble apologies if I "stifled" her creativity, but I have a nine-year-old daughter preparing for an O-level in Latin.

A well-designed software package should furnish an explanation, challenge the student with questions, while keeping a record of reading intake and assessing regularly how much he/she can recall. If the student has forgotten the information, it would repeat the questions at intervals until the database recorded consistent correct entries. Effective software would be tailored, day by day, to present similar versions of the same questions and repeat this process until students keyed in the correct answers.

Undoubtedly, a revolution is underway in schools as a result of an awareness that information on computers has reduced the need to memorize data. If you take the subject of history, for example, the emphasis has been shifting from pure fact study to assessment/analysis of information. While one should applaud efforts to encourage students to think critically, if history ignores fundamentals - such as key dates - then you are back to Woodhead's concern of blind ignorance of the basics.

And once you get into "analysis", the danger is that the teacher will impose his/her biased view on a subject, turning a classroom into a sociology harangue. This is another point about superior educational software. To ensure objectivity, the facts should be approved by an international panel of experts - ensuring authoritative, balanced and objective information. With the aid of the Internet, that unbiased data could be updated. That is another current weakness of e-education/software - it generally doesn't benefit from a worldwide grid of educators committed to balanced teaching.

Interactive universities and other distance-education facilities have begun to offer an alternative to blackboard classrooms in remote places where students have little access to physical schoolrooms. And so we have seen the spread of e-education in the outbacks of Australia and America and in the north-western Chinese desert province of Xinjiang.

But the market for e-learning is far, far wider for the reasons outlined in Woodhead's criticisms. Rejection-of-facts teaching means that many students are victims of an educational ideology.

The digital era coincides with an increasing demand for employees with higher skills. By the year 2000, half the jobs in America required the equivalent of one year in college. If Hong Kong wants to become an e-learning hub, it needs to show great inventiveness in developing proactive educational software - linked to an impartial e-network of experts so that the information can be constantly updated and improved. The learning ladder cries out for programs that keep a constant eye on the student's progress.

(HK Edition 05/17/2004 page6)