Technology is no silver bullet for low educational attainment

In the past two decades, the world has entered ever more children into school with the aim of giving them the skills to lead productive lives.

Some 91 per cent of children in emerging economies are in primary school, up from 83 per cent in 2000. The number of kids not in class has fallen to 57m from 100m worldwide in 2000. Secondary school enrolment has also jumped. Yet effectiveness remains a challenge for education the world over.

This is why global attention is turning to the next big educational challenge: ensuring that pupils are equipped to participate in the workforce in an era of rapid technological change.

“The issue of quality is increasingly on the list of international policymakers,” said Maryanna Abdo, emerging markets education director at Parthenon-EY, a consultancy. “There is a recognition that your economies cannot survive and thrive without educated populations.”

At present, many school systems are hindered by stretched financial resources, poorly-trained teachers, unimaginative curriculums, and outdated pedagogical approaches that often focus on rote learning.


Filling children’s heads with facts, rather than developing critical-thinking abilities, is too often a priority. Such drawbacks are reflected in pupils’ low levels of learning, and high dropout rates. Globally, fewer than 80 per cent of primary school students even complete six years of education. Parthenon-EY estimates that 250m children now in school will leave without basic literacy and numeracy skills. In India, the Pratham Education Foundation reckons that more than half of fifth-year students cannot read a simple story from a year-two textbook fluently. About 75 per cent of third-year students cannot do simple, two-digit subtraction.

It is not only developing countries that face educational challenges. The US and many European countries are wrestling with the needs of disadvantaged children — whether poorer pupils or newly-arrived refugees. In the digital era, technology is seen as a powerful tool to bridge some of the gaps in education. Around the world, as this report shows, charities, social enterprises and governments are experimenting to see which techniques can improve learning by children — as well as by adults.


The US-based Literacy Bridge initiative has developed a Talking Book Program, using audio computers to give illiterate farmers in Ghana information on health and best practices in agriculture. Indian billionaire Nandan Nilekani has created EkStep, or One Step, which is hoping to tackle some of India’s educational challenges with an integrated digital platform that can tailor content for children’s individual needs.

The tool is intended for use by a range of “caring adults,” whether family members, NGO workers, or schoolteachers who lack the time to provide enough individual attention to detect and rectify weak areas in pupils’ performance.

Yet experts warn that the adoption of new technology must be accompanied by innovative thinking about what education means, what skills are required and how students should be taught.

“Technology is not going to be the silver bullet that solves all problems,” says Debasish Mitter, India country director of the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation, an American non-profit group. “It’s not enough to say we have put a TV in the classroom that plays great videos. The objective has to be how does tech blend in and support how a child learns.”

Mr Mitter also argues that innovations in teacher training, pedagogical methods, and other aspects of education must be studied rigorously to ensure that ideas which seem captivating in theory have the desired impact on the ground.

Or as Julia Gillard, the former Australian prime minister, writes in this report, “education and innovation are inextricably linked” but they do not automatically “form a virtuous circle”. “It is important to absorb the lessons of what has not worked . . . to help us find solutions that will.”

Source: Financial Times