140 | Education
given to the development of a healthy lifestyle, positive attitudes and values and helping students to acquire life skills and the ability to resist temptation.
Schools are encouraged to work out their HSP based on four elements: development of a management and organisation system for health matters; fostering of a healthy school environment; development of healthy lifestyles; and identification of students who may need help coupled with establishment of a referral system.
Each school should formulate a plan to help students acquire and develop the necessary knowledge, skills and attitude to resist the temptation to use drugs. The plan should also incorporate themes such as healthy eating, not-smoking and maintenance of mental health.
Since the 2006-2007 school year, the EDB has worked with the Department of Health to promote healthy eating among students through the [email protected] campaign. In 2009, the 'EatSmart School Accreditation Scheme' was launched to encourage primary schools to develop a supportive environment for healthy eating.
Developing e-learning and teaching resources
The Working Group on Textbooks and E-learning Resources Development has made a number of recommendations to promote e-learning. These include implementing a pilot scheme to support schools in trying out different e-learning strategies through collaboration between schools and other sectors, provision of a one-off grant to schools as an additional incentive to purchase e-learning resources, setting up of an e-platform for transactions in e-learning resources to facilitate the online purchase of e-learning resources by students, teachers and parents, and expediting and strengthening the development of an e-depository of curriculum- based learning and teaching resources for the primary and junior secondary school levels. EDB aims to start implementing these measures in 2010.
Overall Education Landscape
Expenditure on Education
For the 2009-10 financial year, the approved estimate for recurrent government expenditure on education was $53.8 billion, which was 23.6 per cent of all recurrent government expenditure, while the total estimate for government expenditure on education was $61.7 billion, or 20.7 per cent of total government expenditure.
Education Commission
The Education Commission is responsible for advising the Government on education objectives and policies. It co-ordinates the work of all major education- related advisory bodies in the planning and development of education at all levels. The commission also advises the Government on important implementation issues to ensure better co-ordination between policy formulation and implementation.
The commission has a chairman, a vice-chairman who is the Permanent Secretary for Education, seven ex-officio members and a number of non-official members. The seven ex-officio members comprise the chairmen of the Advisory Committee on Teacher Education and Qualifications, the Curriculum Development