Leveraging Technology for Educational Reform and Pedagogical Innovation: Policies and Practices in Hong Kong and Singapore

Schools as social institutions are resistant to change, and the introduction of ICT (information and communication technologies) into classrooms has not yet created fundamental changes in learning and teaching in public schooling in general. Findings from international comparative studies have shown that educational innovations leveraging the potentials of technology have taken place in schools around the world and that national educational policies have major influence on the sustainability and scalability of educational innovations. This commentary draws on the policies and strategies associated with the implementation of the IT in Education masterplan in Singapore and Hong Kong to argue that there is a distinct possibility that these systems will be able to leverage the potential of ICT to bring about significant changes in public schooling within the next two decades.