For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
October 21, 2001

U.S. Supports APEC e-Learning Initiatives
U.S. Supports APEC e-Learning Initiatives

The greatest resource of any nation is the creative energies of its people.  They must gain the skills demanded by a new economic world. Only when literacy and learning are widespread will the benefits of the global economy be widely shared.

-- President George W. Bush
October 20, 2001

The United States is a strong supporter of APEC activities aimed at strengthening basic and secondary education, particularly through the innovative use of the Internet. The Bush Administration, in close partnership with other APEC economies and the private sector, is launching three important new APEC education projects: the APEC Cyber Education Cooperation consortium, the Asia-Pacific e-Learning Alliance, and the e-Language Learning Project.

-- APEC Cyber Education Cooperation. The Department of Education has joined with other ministries and private sector organizations to develop a knowledge bank of best practices in education. The Department has also developed a web portal to host online communities of educators and provide training for teachers to improve the use of information and communications technology in the classroom. When teachers, for example, want to find out how students in Singapore have achieved the best math scores in the world, they can access via the Internet the curriculum materials and lesson plans of Singaporean teachers.

-- e-Language Learning Project. Given the importance of second language skills in today's global economy, the U.S. will launch an initiative that will use the Internet to help students learn a second language. The initial focus will be on English, Chinese, and Spanish, which are expected to be the dominant languages on the Internet.

-- Asia-Pacific e-Learning Alliance. Ten companies from the United States and Asia, including Sun Microsystems, AOL Time Warner, Cisco Systems, Parsons Brinckerhoff, Applied Materials, Saba Systems, Fujitsu, Daesung Group, Acer Enrich, and YTL e-Solutions, have formed an alliance to identify and promote the policies and practices that encourage information technology development and training. This year they are conducting studies of how e-learning can improve education and boost productivity.

# # #