There are no technology shortcuts to good education in International Development.
Education is critical to international development. It lays the foundation for better livelihoods, health, income, and governance. Thought not entirely sufficient for the goals of development, no country has achieved widespread development objectives without an educated population.
Thus, it’s extremely tempting for anyone working in ICT and development to seek to apply ICTs to education with the belief that any attempt to support education is worthwhile.
Unfortunately, there are no technology shortcuts to good primary and secondary education. For primary and secondary schools that are underperforming or limited in resources, efforts to improve education should focus almost exclusively on better teachers and stronger administrations. It’s not that ICT can’t support education at all – rather, it’s that successful integration of ICT into educational institutions requires a set of preconditions that are almost never met in low-income or underperforming schools. Information technology, if used at all, should be targeted for certain, specific uses or limited to well-funded schools whose fundamentals are not in question.
Four lines of evidence lead to this claim. First, the history of electronic technologies in schools is fraught with failures. For example, in the 1960s, development specialists and communication scholars believed deeply in the transformational capacity of television for mass education. They thought that television, with its novel features, would eliminate illiteracy and poor education, at least in those places that TV could reach. 50 years later, we see that while television has had some value, but its impact on education is modest at best.
Second, computers are no exception, and rigorous studies show that it is incredibly difficult to have positive educational impact with computers. Their conclusions are that (1) computers can help if used as a supplement to good teaching; (2) computers cannot substitute for good teaching; and (3) without willing and able teachers to integrate computers into the curriculum, little happens. Technology at best only amplifies the pedagogical capacity of educational systems; it can make good schools better, but it makes bad schools worse.
Third, technology has a huge opportunity cost in the form of more effective non-technology interventions. ICT enthusiasts often overlook simple, inexpensive solutions to educational challenges, because they feel they must use ICT in their work. This is problematic if the end goal is truly better education (as opposed to technology penetration), because it leads to a distraction of resources – time, money, effort – from all stakeholders – students, teachers, administrators, parents, and development practitioners.
Fourth, many good school systems excel without much technology. The Finnish school system, for example, routinely scores among the top of the countries that participate in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). Many factors contribute to their success, but one of them is not large amounts of state-of-the-art technology in their classrooms.
A useful analogy is that of exercise technology to physical fitness. Treadmills and weight machines contribute to the health of a person who is self-directed and self-disciplined. But, absent that motivation, even the fanciest technology is pointless for fitness. Either the self-direction and motivation, or a good coach or personal trainer is a prerequisite to effective exercise, and a prerequisite even to using technology. Furthermore, once the motivation exists, plenty of exercises can be devised with available props – for all but elite athletes, a good coach can do a lot with minimal technology.
The inescapable conclusion is that significant investments in computers, mobile phones, and other electronic gadgets in education are neither necessary nor warranted for most school systems. In particular, the attempt to use technology to fix underperforming classrooms (or to replace non-existent ones) is futile.
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You can view this article in full on the Educational Technology Debate website: ‘There are no technology shortcuts to good education’
