Ministry Wants to Digitize More Textbooks by 2011

The Education Ministry on Wednesday said it plans to spend W66 billion (US$1=W949) to digitize the contents of Korea's textbooks until 2011.

The Ministry plans to increase the number of schools using digital textbooks from 14 this year to 100 in 2011.

Currently, only math textbooks for elementary students have been digitized, but the Ministry plans to digitize texts for all subjects for those years, as well as math, science and English textbooks for Year One in middle schools.

"Digital textbooks have many advantages, like multi-media functions such as videos instead of printed illustrations," a ministry official said.

Studies show that students pay more attention to lessons when they use digital textbooks, the official added.

Elementary schoolers will get their Internet for digital textbooks for free, but it hasn't been decided whether to charge fees for middle and high school students, the official said.