Technology in the global education agenda
This article was prepared by Alexis Austin, who spent several months earlier this year at Emerge Education as an intern, learning about investment and entrepreneurship. As one of her learning challenges, Alexis wanted to look at what role technology played in global thinking about the current state of education and its future and she produced this article at the end of the internship to summarize her findings. Thank you, Alexis!
After reading hundreds of pages from a multitude of sources, I chose six reports from globally respected organisations for their influence on my understanding of education and technology. This article tries to summarize their insights on global attitudes toward thechallenges and efficacy of technology in education. My goal has been to clarify how leaders view technology in education systems, define existing gaps, and try to encourage dialogue that would lead to better learning outcomes. (For a full list of the reports, see the Appendix at the end).
Approach
The reason for choosing these specific reports was that they each offered a unique perspective on edtech from the point of view of governments, educators, global leaders, investors, philanthropists, and researchers. The attitudes of these key stakeholders’ toward education need to be taken into account as the future of learning systems will be catalyzed by many of them. While a number of views is shared by the authors of all six, it was interesting to note the discrepancies that exist between them. By synthesizing these reports, this article presents a summary view on global leaders’ attitudes towards the current state of education and the strategies that will shape its future.
Current state
Across the six reports, the consensus is that globalization and technological innovation are a significant influence on the way we live and work around the globe. The internet and the development of digital technology have a huge impact on how we communicate, travel, and manage day-to-day tasks. Today, technology advancement in automation is increasing the risk of job displacement. New jobs require new skill sets, which can’t be taught overnight. However, education and training systems have remained static, underinvested, and are thus considered largely inadequate to the ever-changing population of learners and their needs.
Key issues
Global leaders from the World Economic Forum and the Education Commission recognize that education and skills are fundamental for the achievement of human potential, economic prosperity, and social stability. Both organizations suggest that the most pressing issue in the education ecosystem is a global learning crisis, the impact of which — recessions, unemployment, inequality, poverty, — could damage global society and economies. The McKinsey Global Institute reported that robots could replace 800 million jobs by 2030, leaving many workers displaced and ill-prepared for new market needs. A ‘skills revolution’ could produce an abundance of new opportunities, but our education and training systems are seen as vastly unsuitable. Government leaders, philanthropists, and the WEC consider the biggest issue in our education system to be the adult population of learners and workers facing a skills revolution, while UNESCO and the Education Commission’s major concern is the population of young learners with inadequate education.
Data from the UNESCO Institute for Statistics raises concerns for the 617 million children and adolescents who aren’t able to read or manage basic math. Only half of the world’s children achieve minimum proficiency in reading and math by the time they leave school, lacking basic skills they need for the 21st century workplace. Today, young people represent the world’s most valuable asset — human capital — yet are 3x more likely to be unemployed than adults. Educators in poorer countries face greater barriers to improving education and introducing technology in the classroom such as lack of infrastructure, government regulations, student/teacher capability, and lack of funding. If education in much of the world cannot meet the rising demands for skills there will be a major labor deficit in both developing and developed economics, leaving many low-income countries still in extreme poverty.
The global learning crisis, in adult and youth populations alike, poses a major threat to future prosperity — but it is not inevitable. The following section on strategies for change looks at ways to combat the issues at stake.
Strategies for Change
To prevent a global learning crisis, there must be greater dialogues around and understanding of strategies that could help change and improve the current and future education systems. This section aims to provide broad suggestions for improvement and change strategies that are at the forefront of leaders’ minds.
“If we do not change the way we teach, 30 years from now, we’re going to be in trouble” — Jack Ma, founder of Alibaba Group, China’s e-commerce giant
There is a shared global desire for new learning strategies and frameworks — but where and how to strategize change remains up in the air. The influx of digital technology and innovative tools are having a significant impact onthe learning environment but governments, educators, and investors differ on what change for the better would look like. The strategies for funding, implementing, and sustaining edtech solutions highlighted here are ones that have major potential to catalyze improvements in learning.
Funding
There is clearly a need to better train educators when deploying edtech solutions, but this is often associated with increased costs and funding. The edtech market faces volatility and fluctuations similar to other startups, but despite the recent years of increased year-on-year growth, the edtech market has not seen the boom it needs and remains underfunded. To put it in perspective, the founder of Edtech Europe Benjamin Vedrenne-Cloquet has stated that ‘edtech received less investment from venture capital than the gaming industry … yet education is 60 times the size of gaming.’ Despite recent investment growth, this comparison points to the inherent riskiness of edtech and the scope of investors’ aversion. In a scathing article, the CEO of Navitas Ventures Patrick Brothers argues against those who claim that the edtech market is $250b in size, suggesting that the riskier reality is closer to $50b.
To counter this risk, public and private investors need to have a strategy in place for measuring ROI in relation to edtech startups. The real innovation in edtech is the impact on the education and learning of future generations, something that is hard to measure. The slow and long sales cycle of edtech and the time it takes to measure the impact on student learning outcomes in turn mean that investors may not see returns immediately. Investors must be mindful of this and have a strategy in place to mitigate risks. Educators and administrators, on the other hand, must be cautious before they leap into deploying ‘edtech for the sake of edtech’, something Promethean’s survey results pointed towards as well.
Implementation
While most agreed that there must be appropriate training on all levels, this sentiment has yet to make itself felt in practice in education systems.
In Promethean’s The State of Technology in Education, 1,600 educators throughout UK were surveyed and only 5% believed they have received full training and support for edtech solutions.
Along with educators, global leaders from the WEF say technical and vocational education and training, key drivers of economic growth, are underutilized. The static and underinvested state of education and training systems in turn makes it more difficult for edtech solutions to succeed and pushes us deeper into an inadequate labor market. Thus, to offer a beneficial digital learning experience, training needs to happen at all levels — from teachers to administrators to principals — in order to enable effective implementation. The need for training circles back to funding, as without adequate financing for training, the implementation is unlikely to succeed.
Sustainability
Above all, sustainable solutions need to be holistic, agile, and focused on continuous learning that can trace the experience of technologies being used and make adjustments. For teachers and educators, impactful solutions include learning improvements and ease of use for teachers in the classroom. For investors, sustainability means having tangible research evidence on long-term learning gains and the financial returns a solution may provide. Governments and leaders, the highest body of accountability, hope that sustainable edtech solutions can offer a learning experience that contributes towards the larger stability of our global community.
Conclusion
The impression these reports create is that the global community is not doing enough to leverage technology in order to improve education outcomes and contribute to greater equality — a necessary step to counter the reality of a global learning crisis. The growth in edtech funding and the number of solutions on the market relies on an underlying assumption that edtech will enable improved learning outcomes. Policy makers and leaders need to be wary of taking this at face value as they will be held accountable for education improvements. In order to unlock the potential offered by edtech, there must be a better understanding of what is needed to introduce, implement, and sustain these solutions.
Appendix: the reports
World Economic Forum (WEF). November 2017. “There Is a Global Learning Crisis. Our Young People Deserve Better Skills.” WEF Annual Meeting of the Global Future Councils.
WEF’s annual meeting of the Global Future Council brought together 700 recognized world-leading experts with the common goal to shape a better future by promoting innovative solutions for the implications of the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
The International Commission on Financing Global Education Opportunity. September 2016. “The Learning Generation: Investing in Education for a Changing World.”
The International Commission on Financing Global Education Opportunities (the Education Commission) launched their report — with the goal invoke governments, philanthropists and the larger education community — that promotes the importance of education to reduce inequality, instability and poverty.
Metaari Advanced Learning Technology Research. January 2018. “The 2017 Global Learning Technology Investment Patterns.”
Metaari’s annual whitepaper “The 2017 Global Learning Technology Investment Patterns” tracks the technology learning market in 122 countries while viewing investments as leading indicators for opportunity.
Promethean. 2017/2018. “The State of Technology in Education Report 2017/2018.”
For “The State of Technology in Education Report 2017/2018,” Promethean surveyed over 1,600 educators in the UK to establish what the edtech landscape looks like and how it has changed in terms of usage.
UNESCO. 2017/2018. “Accountability in education: Meeting our commitments.” 2017/2018 GEM Report.
UNESCO’s report is the second in their Global Educational Monitoring (GEM) Report series. In their goal of sustainable development, the report examines accountability and how relevant stakeholders can provide education more effectively, efficiently, and equitably. The conclusion of their report provides recommendations for building sustainable education systems.
Navitas Ventures. August 2017. “The Global Edtech Landscape.” Project Landscape 3.0.
Navitas’ Project Landscape 3.0 — Mapping the Future of Education mapped 26 clusters of innovation across 15,000+ companies, $50B+ in investments, and teams from over 50 countries all building the next generation of the education. The innovation landscape provides a look at the opportunities and trends towards successful edtech interventions and ultimately, a positive impact on learning.
