*****************************************************
By the close of a three-month application period which ended on September 24, the Education Bureau had received a total of 86 applications for the development of e-textbooks under the E-Textbook Market Development Scheme (EMADS). The response is encouraging, and only represents the number of applications submitted in person by the deadline on September 24. As we also accept applications submitted by post, more applications may still arrive.
Most of the applications cover the subjects of Mathematics (29), English Language (22) and Chinese Language (9). The remaining 26 applications cover the subjects of Putonghua, General Studies, Science, Computer Literacy, History, Geography, Chinese History, Life and Society and Physical Education. Each application covers a key learning stage (i.e. P1 to P3, P4 to P6 or S1 to S3).
A total of 31 organisations have submitted applications for the EMADS, 13 of which are non-profit-making organisations and 18 of which are other organisations. Among them, at least five are textbook publishing-related organisations and three are school and tertiary institutions.
The EMADS aims to encourage potential and aspiring e-textbook developers to develop e-textbooks in line with our local curricula, as well as to try out a vetting and quality assurance mechanism for e-textbooks.
The applications for different subject sets will be vetted by the respective Subject Vetting Panels on the quality aspects. The Pricing and Implementation Panel will then assess the pricing commitment and implementation for each EMADS application. The Steering Committee on Selection, Quality Assurance and Review for the EMADS will consider the overall applications for the EMADS and advise on the amount of seeding grant to be provided to each of the successful non-profit-making applicants. The application results are expected to be available in the fourth quarter of 2012.
To field-test the e-textbooks developed under the EMADS in schools, the Education Bureau has separately launched a Partner Schools Scheme to invite partner schools to try out the e-textbooks and provide feedback, so that the developers can enhance the design and contents of the e-textbooks. The selected partner schools will be notified in December 2012 following the announcement of the results of the EMADS applications.
Ends/Tuesday, September 25, 2012
Issued at HKT 17:59
NNNN
