Schools and the devastating lack of a national IT policy strategy

My colleague Mikael von Otter & I visited today the representatives X and Y of the public institution Z which has links to the education system. Once again, we realized the devastating effect of the lack of an IT policy strategy in the field of education, as unfortunately in most other fields in our country. Most European countries with both self-respect and insight into the demands of change in a globalized society make sure that they put all their efforts into introducing IT into school education - not least to meet competition from Asia. Not so in Sweden. With the otherwise high-flown education minister Jan Björklund at the helm, we are effectively turning a blind eye to the future. A blind eye that could be the blunder of all time. Unfortunately, he is not alone. Apart from a few low-level politicians, there seems to be a consensus from the center that IT use in education is a non-issue.

The failure to drive IT in education more effectively seems to be based on a number of fallacies.

Fallacy number 1: IT is not needed in education, it is just a distraction. Kids just play games, chat with each other or use the Internet to cheat for information. Paper and pencil is fine, it worked in my day, it's 'real'.

Comment: Apart from the obvious objection that no adult would agree to work completely non-computerized, or for that matter claim that it would be effective, one might ask why young people, who are otherwise effective users of IT, should not be allowed to use their skills at school. Moreover, the effect of leaving students to develop IT skills in their spare time (with parental equipment and guidance) leads to class differences, an effect confirmed by an OECD study. Admittedly, bringing IT into the classroom requires discipline and leadership from teachers, and introducing a new way of teaching poses a number of transitional problems. However, this is no reason to turn a blind eye and hold back the developments that are already underway.

Fallacy number 2: There are no good IT learning materials. Those that do exist have lock-ins to individual providers.

Comment: It is nonsense to say that there are no effective learning materials. We have several textbook publishers delivering services that are used with proven success in hundreds of schools in this country, and tens of thousands of schools abroad. The big problem is that the adult generation is ignorant of what the actual learning situation looks like when using IT, simply because they only have the centuries-old model of teaching by the classroom in mind. It may be true that ordinary adults have this limited imagination, but it is a scandal that leading politicians, whose damned duty it is to develop a future-proof, effective education system, base their view of the teaching situation on this outdated model.

There are problems such as lack of uniformity and compatibility between systems, but these would solve themselves if someone from the center said: Now it is IT in education that counts! Then there would be more momentum for all principals to get their routines in order.

Fallacy number 3: There is no evidence that IT in education leads to better learning outcomes.

Comment: There are numerous studies, especially from abroad, which point to better results, mainly in the form of positive evaluations from teachers who have implemented IT in teaching. Of course, it is difficult to strictly prove the link between the use of IT-based learning materials and improved study results, but this has to do with the methodological problems involved in conducting comparative studies where the effect of IT use is studied in isolation.

But above all: come on! Look, and taste the wording again: "There is no evidence that IT in education leads to better study results." Jump twenty years into the future and the statement becomes laughable. Perhaps this was the reasoning of the Polish armed forces in the summer of 1939: "There is no evidence that motorized combat units are more powerful than horse-drawn ones". They were certainly right about the availability of 'evidence', but they were soon overcome by reality.