LONDON, UK, September 8, 2004 - A book published today by Cisco Systems predicts that information communication technology (ICT) will end school education as most people know it. Essays collected in Connected Schools suggest that one day pupils will be taught in mixed groups of different ages and abilities as learning becomes increasingly personalised. Teachers will take on the role of learning companion and schools will be open online 24 hours a day.

The 17 essays in Connected Schools present the most up-to-date insight into the direction of education in the next decade. Contributors* include government ministers, academic researchers, practitioners and students from Europe, the Middle East, the United States, Canada and Australia, who all face similar challenges and more or less share a common vision.

Among the contributors is David Miliband, the UK minister of state for school standards who writes: "ICT holds the potential to drive forward a revolution in English education. I believe it can help build a universal education system tailored to the needs and talents of individual students."

"We produced the book so we could share the very latest thinking in learning and teaching with other educators and policy makers," said Dr Michelle Selinger, editor of Connected Schools and executive adviser on education at Cisco in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. "These essays don't just look at the future though; they show how technology is helping teachers to make education more relevant to students, increasing their motivation and eagerness to learn and involving their parents and the communities in which they live."

Commenting on the book, Maruja Gutierrez-Diaz, head of Directorate General for Education and Culture at the European Commission in Brussels said it was "visionary". She added, "It makes clear the need for a lucid approach to the unprecedented possibilities open to Connected Schools and conveys a strong sense of reality, of a future which is ours if we choose."

Mike Tomlinson, a previous chief inspector of schools in the United Kingdom and chairman of the Working Group on 14-19 Reform for the U.K. government said, "The key messages…appear to be that the structures in which learning and teaching occur need to change, that ICT has a major role to play in learning and that skills need to be given greater emphasis."

Niki Davis, director of Iowa State Center for Technology in Learning and Teaching and professor of ICT in Education, Institute of Education University of London, said: "Connected Schools is an exciting book with glimpses of the future in education. While challenges are recognised, so are new ways of working in education with learners engaged right from the start."

Connected Schools is third in a series of books produced by Cisco's Internet Business Solutions Group which give up-to-the-minute analysis on private and public sectors by international visionaries. Books already published are Connected Health and Connected Cities. Connected Schools is available priced €14, £9.99 or $19 from www.cisco.com/en/US/about/ac79/wp/ctd/index.html.

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* Connected Schools List of Contributors
Dr Michelle Selinger, Executive AdviserEducation, Cisco Systems, EMEA; Craig Jones and Kevin Smith, students, UK; Shirley Alexander, Professor of Learning Technologies, University of Technology Sydney, Australia; Marian Brooks, Executive Director, Cambridge Education, UK and Eddie Brady, Principal, Unity City Academy, UK; Manfred Wolf, Central Institute for Teacher Training and Staff Development, Bavaria, Germany; Dmitry Guzhelya, Director of Federation of Internet Education; Mark Edwards, Superintendent of Schools, Enrico Country, Virginia, US; John English, Community Superintendent, Fairfax County, USA; Toine Maes, General Manager of Kennisnet, Netherlands; John Anderson, Education Technology Strategy Coordinator, Northern Ireland School Service and Jimmy Stewart, Director of the C2K Project, Northern Ireland; Emile Cubeisy, Project Director and Andreas Cox Program Manager, Jordan Education Initiative, Jordan; David Miliband, Minister of State for School Standards, Department for Education and Skills, UK; Francois Fillon, Minister of Education, France; Lyle Oberg, Minister of Learning, Alberta, Canada; Adam Horvath, IT advisor to the Ministry of Education, Hungary; Ulf Lundin, Director , European SchoolNet, Brussels, Belgium; Alexander Yu Uvarov, Director of the Scientific Council of Cybernetics, Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia; Networking for transformation - David Triggs, Principal, Greensward College, UK