MOE stopped using the Mobile Guardian app in all students’ personal devices as of end-August.
SINGAPORE – A new application to manage the use of students’ devices is slated to be rolled out by January 2025, after the Ministry of Education stopped using the Mobile Guardian app in all students’ iPads and Chromebooks.
For students not taking national exams, adjustments were also made according to their schools’ needs, he said, responding to supplementary questions by Dr Lim Wee Kiak on whether the results of affected students’ exams would be moderated. These include activating web filtering on Chromebooks, and giving instructions on the Parents Gateway app for activating Apple’s parental controls on iPad to set screen-time boundaries and restrict access to certain sites.
To contain the breach, Mobile Guardian immediately shut down its servers and the app was removed from all school devices here on Aug 5. “Through this episode, it was most heartening to see many students step forward and proactively share their personal notes with classmates, and organise study sessions to do revision for their tests and exams together,” said Mr Chan.
On May 31, Mobile Guardian implemented additional security measures such as strengthening authentication controls and fixing vulnerabilities. Different levels of security and resources are devoted to different systems, Mr Chan said, and when incidents occur, investigations by contractors and the MOE help identify blind spots to improve overall security.“We must embrace edtech in our teaching and learning so that our students grow up to be digitally savvy, able to navigate digital environments and take on the opportunities and challenges of the future,” he said, adding that regular backing up of information should be practised.
Mr Gerald Giam asked if backups were done by MOE, to which Mr Chan explained that users are responsible for backing up their own devices and systems.
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