27 December 2013

27 December, 2013 – StarHub and Skoolbo today completed the Tablets Programme for students aged seven to nine from low-income families in the South East District. The students scored an average improvement rate of 32.8% on Skoolbo Core Skills, an app for English and Maths installed on the tablets specially prepared for them.

Skoolbo is a Singapore-based eLearning company providing accessible educational games for children aged between four to ten.

In June 2013, StarHub and Skoolbo presented the tablets to 18 students from the NTUC Income's OrangeAid South East Learning Family Programme Alumni (LFPA). The participants brought the tablets home to play Core Skills for approximately 90 minutes per week. At the end of the programme in early December, Skoolbo and South East Community Development Council (CDC) analysed the progress of each child and found that the children answered 69,338 questions correctly, registering an average improvement rate of 32.8%.

Student Felisa Wong, nine, set a record with 19,313 correct answers on Skoolbo. Meanwhile, student Jordan Goh, seven, made the largest improvement of 52.1%.

The LFPA is a joint programme organised by the South East CDC and Janus Education. The 27-weekend family support enrichment programme encourages lifelong learning habits by nurturing creativity and social skills among its participants. At the same time, it also helps strengthen parents' parenting skills and bonding with their children.

Mr Tay Kok Chin, Skoolbo Director of Partnerships, also grassroot leader for Siglap, said: "Skoolbo is  pleased to partner South East CDC to promote learning in the family, especially for children to learn in an innovative way. We are thankful for the sponsorship from StarHub and support from Janus Education. We look forward to working with Southeast CDC again next year.”

The tablets were sponsored by StarHub. “StarHub believes in empowering the less privileged members of our community,” said Mr Stephen Lee, Head of i3 (Innovation, Investment and Incubation), StarHub. “By sponsoring the tablets for these 18 families, we are using technology to bridge the digital divide and provide them with the same connectivity and learning opportunities as their peers.”

“The use of the tablets was significant to helping the parents and the children improve in literacy and numeracy,” said Janus Education Services managing director Ms Catherine Khoo. “Having the parents play the game itself helped them guide their children in the learning process. The children had fun, but more so, parents found it a valuable tool in bonding with their children while they learnt together.”

Skoolbo Core Skills is a literacy and numeracy program with more than 60,000 questions. The Skoolbo Spiral Learning Algorithm ensures every kid is always receiving the right level of difficulty with the appropriate balance of new and revision content.  The system continues to assess the child’s performance and adapts its game content to match the child’s learning method and current achievements. Skoolbo Core Skills is completely free.