As South Korea moves to expand artificial intelligence education across primary and secondary schools, a leading education expert from Singapore—widely regarded as a global frontrunner in edtech—has offered a measured perspective, noting that the success of education policy depends less on speed or technology than on patience and teachers.
In an interview with The Seoul Economic Daily on December 11, 2025, Ben Leong, Associate Professor of Computer Science at the National University of Singapore (NUS) and Director of AI Centre for Educational Technologies (AICET), shared his views on the future direction of education policy in the age of AI.
Singapore rolled out its ICT in Education Masterplans over a 23-year period from 1997 to 2020, and is now implementing a new EdTech Masterplan for 2024–2030 aimed at strengthening digital literacy and AI capabilities. Prof. Leong played a central role in this transformation, leading the design and operation of the Ministry of Education’s national online learning platform, the Student Learning Space (SLS), from 2014 to 2019.
Asked about the key to Singapore’s successful digital transition in education, Prof. Leong pointed not to technology, but to people—and patience.
“Singapore has invested heavily in educational technology,” he said, “but we’ve never believed that technology itself improves the quality of education.” The real purpose of technology, he stressed, “is to support teachers, not to replace them.”
He noted that after the launch of SLS, the government’s primary focus was helping teachers adapt smoothly to a digital learning environment. At the same time, it made investments in building teacher communities alongside the platform itself. One outcome was the creation of SgLDC (Singapore Learning Designers Circle), an online community where more than 22,000 teachers now voluntarily share lesson designs for remote learning and exchange feedback on classroom challenges.
Teachers’ input was actively incorporated from the earliest stages of SLS development, and each new technology was introduced only after allowing sufficient time for adjustment—an approach Leong credits as critical to the platform’s smooth adoption.
“Every feature of SLS was designed from an educator’s perspective, not an engineer’s,” he said. “Even if that meant sacrificing some convenience, we prioritized pedagogical soundness.”
Although SLS was officially launched in 2017, AI features were added only five years later. “We chose to wait until the system was fully stabilized,” Prof. Leong explained. “The goal was not quick wins, but long-term reliability.”
For countries like South Korea considering a government-led online learning platform, Prof. Leong offered clear advice: “You have to persuade teachers and bring them in as active participants. And you have to see this as a long-term project—one that requires patience, not short-term performance metrics.”
Looking ahead to the AI era, Prof. Leong argued that education policy must ultimately center on human capabilities. “Most routine jobs will be automated,” he said. “The skills students will need most are human ones—communication, conflict management, and the ability to work with people.”
He added that Singapore is now focusing on fostering students’ social skills and then asking a secondary question: what kinds of education technologies should be developed and invested in to support that goal? “At its core, education is a human endeavor,” Prof. Leong said. “And policies that rely on technology while failing to respect and empower teachers are bound to fail.”
The above is the English translated article of an interview with Prof. Ben Leong by The Seoul Economic Daily, Reporter Jang Hyung-Im. The original Korean version of the interview can be found here-> https://www.sedaily.com/article/14174056
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