Bett, formerly known as the British Educational Training and Technology show, is in Singapore for its second year. Adrian Lim of the Infocomm Development Authority (IDA) looks specifically at how technology can be sculpted to children’s educational needs.

Despite what many students would like to believe, education is a part of life. That is not to say that it is perfect however. The Bett Asia leadership summit has come for the second time to Singapore, gathering over 500 industry leaders in technology and education to talk about the new and exciting developments in digital education. This year’s focus is on disruptive technology and how it benefits life-long learning.

The morning keynotes brought up interesting concepts and considerations, as well as real life goals and plans for the future of education not just in Singapore, but also all over Asia.

SIX-SIX.COM spoke with Adrian Lim, Director of Education for the Sectoral Innovation Group at Infocomm Development Authority (IDA) after his keynote speech about the need for personalised education and preparing Singaporean children for the future.

Lim explains that IDAs mandate is to develop technology that will help make Singapore a Smart nation, bringing in Multi-National Corporations (MNCs) as well as local start-ups to meet this objective. Lim works specifically within education technology.

Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong launched Smart Nation last year, commenting ‘our aim is for Singapore to be a smart nation, a nation where our people live meaningful and fulfilled lives, enabled by technology and offering exciting opportunities for all’.

The main thrust of Lim’s talk was that instead of having a one size fits all approach to education, there should a move towards personalising the education process to better fit the learning pace of individual students. He argues that with analytical systems in place, educators can find the cause of a child’s struggle within a certain class, and then categorise students appropriately. “This way, rather than having the whole class take a remedial class, only those that need it can have the lesson.

Before joining IDA, Lim was himself an educator. Speaking after his keynote, he shares a particular experience he had teaching probability at school. “I got a giant pair of dice, got 12 volunteers out of a class of 40 and separated them into racing tracks. The rest of the class were pundits, and asked who would win based on the dice role. The majority quickly learned that the ‘horses’ numbered six or seven were more likely to win, and they understood probability at a young age. I was reprimanded for this lesson, but it left an impression!”

During the presentation, one example of what Lim termed ‘age-appropriate technology,’ were robotic bees on number pads, made by US company Bee-Bot. He explains during the interview that, “they are very simple robots. They move forward, turn left and right, and go backwards. They way they are used is that the children are given a simple mathematics problem, and they program the robot to go to the right answer.” This is just one example of programs that IDA try out at several schools within Singapore.

“We are an enabler,” Lim explains, “We always work to support agencies to make them work more effectively.” He stresses that the specificities of what goes on within a classroom are the purview of the Ministry of Education, but it is a collaborative process, arguing, “One cannot do without the other. If we did this technology alone, without trying it out, most of it would be a white elephant.”

There are many technological advances occurring within education around the world, but progress is not without its problems. One issue that Lim believes is holding back development of educational technology is poor application within the classroom. “People push technology without understanding the problem. They just leave it there. That is the reason why a lot of technology efforts fail, they don’t get in touch with the teachers or stakeholders. IDA tries to teach educational technology companies that for good solutions, you need to understand and appreciate the ground.”

Lim also commented on the recent report made by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), which stated that there was no appreciable improvement in a child’s learning with the use of technology. “The report cannot be taken on its own. I dug up another OECD report from last year, which reported a huge strain on teachers around the world. You need to support them; it is a human enterprise after all.”

He adds, “teachers use technology to make the lessons more enjoyable, more interesting, not to raise test scores. I would say that a lot of innovation in technology is to make education better. If you want to use technology to improve test scores and you gear it towards that, I believe that in the next OECD report, the results would go up.”