South Korea Embraces the Cloud, Will Digitize All School Textbooks by 2015

Image source: Yonhap. A Korean student uses a digital textbook

South Korea’s government yesterday announced a 2.23 trillion won (US$ 2.07 billion) plan to digitize all school textbooks and place them in the cloud by 2015.

The state-backed program will lighten student’s backpacks, and allow them to better integrate their online research with their school-issued learning materials.

Now we know that Korean middle-school students have world-beating digital literacy skills, this policy looks like a good move towards putting all the student’s learning resources online.

It’s a big step forward for cloud computing in Asia too, being the biggest public-sector investment in the cloud in the region. Technology research firm Gartner recently forecast that global investment in cloud computing would reach a massive $148 billion by 2013.

Korean news agency Yonhap says of the government’s intentions with the digitization:

The government hopes that the new educational tool will help students establish their own study patterns based on individual needs by giving them online access to their lessons and other educational resources. […] The plan is to introduce digitized textbooks in elementary schools in 2014 and expand their use to middle and high schools the following year.