What does “Accessibility” mean in education?
Alec Kretch is the founder of OpenClass — easily build mastery-based review assignments around your content for free at OpenClass.ai.
The age of technology has ushered in a new significance to the term “accessibility” in education. But its exact meaning is vague, seeming to vary on a spectrum depending on its context.
Broadly, most would agree that the best technologies should be available to all learners worldwide: The internet grants access to some of the best instructional resources in the world. Word processors ease drafting papers. Video chat software enables collaboration from anywhere. The list goes on.
But practice teaches us this is not the case: Roughly half the world does not have access to the internet. Those that do may struggle to separate the wheat from the chaff. Or find information in their native language or ideal medium. Or afford additional software to enhance the learning experience.
The point is, there are levels to accessibility. And I wanted to discuss the facets:
Internet accessibility
Internet access is a spectrum in its own right. Statistica estimates that 53.6-percent of people worldwide have access to the internet (source). But of this group, how many have personal computers to access the internet at will?
Additional questions are sparked: If 95-percent of students in a class have access to the internet, can the class include online components? What if only 60-percent of students do? Is there a cutoff point? If some students do not have access to the internet, would their peers using the internet give them an unfair competitive advantage?
These are not easy questions to answer, and they are even more stark at the macro level: If 86.6-percent of people in developed countries have access to the internet compared to just 19.1-percent of people in least developed countries (LDC), how much wider will the already monumental divide in educational quality and opportunity become? Further, given that 33 of the 47 recognized LDCs are in Africa, what are the implications this can have from the perspective of race?
The good news is that global internet accessibility rates have been consistently rising since 2005, and some organizations, such as internet.org, have made it their mission to ensure this continues. (Note: this essay is not to call into question the potential motivations behind such organizations––ultimately, if accessibility increases, I consider it a win.)
Affordability
The internet itself is free, but not necessarily accessible. The next layer of accessibility––both on the internet and in general––is affordability. I view this layer as the one that can be the most directly influenced by individual companies.
Take, for instance, a magical software that allows learners to simply tap a button and instantly learn everything about a given subject. If this theoretical software cost $1 million USD per subject per person, only the ultra-wealthy would be able to afford it. Quickly, a dystopian society could form, with the super-intelligent elite serving over everyone else.
While this example is extreme, the point stands: charging for educational resources increases the wealth divide. Adjusting a price will change where the line is drawn, but the line will still exist. Unless what you’re offering is free.
But any economist will tell you, nothing is truly free. If you open a school with no tuition, educators need to be paid somehow. If you create free software, you need to create a sustainable business somehow.
While this issue is challenging and expands beyond tech––better schools, tutors, and books cost money––companies can play their role in forming responsible business models: Charge institutions, rather than individuals. Charge for non-essential additional features. Increase full scholarship opportunities.
Localization
Many of the world’s best learning resources are presented in English, including roughly 60-percent of the internet (source). As a result, people fluent in English have a deeper, better pool of content at their disposal than people not fluent in English.
This issue is especially relevant in non-native English speaking countries: Wealthy individuals are more likely to learn English, which then grants them greater access to a higher quality of education and further increases the wealth divide.
The best methods to combat this issue are to increase the accessibility of English-learning services or to expand the means of translating learning resources into different languages. Individual companies should prioritize supporting different locales, which can be done through contracting translators for standard copy or integrating translation APIs for user input.
Personalization
“Personalization” is another buzzword that’s thrown around with no clear definition. And, with regards to education, there’s the additional complication of what specifically is being personalized: content, process, product, or learning environment.
To me, personalization means appealing to an individual’s unique needs and preferences. Access to every academic publication likely would not help a person with dyslexia. It’s about having access to the right stuff for you.
Uniform instruction––a problem commonly identified in education as the “glove” problem or “one-size-fits-all” problem––inherently does not make optimal instruction accessible to all students. One educator cannot appeal to the needs of n students, regardless of their credentials or personality traits.
Students with learning disabilities or less-common learning preferences are further ostracized in a standard classroom setting. A student who is deaf cannot follow along in lectures. A student with dyslexia cannot keep up with readings. A student that prefers hands-on instruction may lose interest quickly.
Historically, these students have been deemed “dumb” and excluded from lesson plans. Now, as artificial intelligence is increasing its viability as a classroom complement, the gap between uniform instruction and personalized instruction can begin to be closed.
My call to action for educators is to embrace artificial intelligence as a tool to enhance your instruction. My call to action for software companies is to build tools that account for learners with unique abilities and preferences — including incorporating alt texts to aid screen readers, selecting color palettes based on Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), and responsibly integrating artificial intelligence.
Legality
Accessibility can sometimes be limited due to legal hurdles. These issues can be challenging, sometimes even impossible, to overcome.
As an example, consider a country that embraces censorship over freedom of speech and freedom of press. Valuable learning resources can be greatly reduced, if not banned entirely. While this may not impact internet accessibility in terms of statistics, it certainly reduces the scope of the internet.
More commonly, laws can differ based on municipality or region. For an education software to be used in the United States and Europe, it likely must comply with FERPA and GDPR regulations.
Legal issues can be difficult to navigate, and sometimes a government can force the hand of a company. Software companies should aim to build secure systems and prepare frameworks for handling data breaches, both of which should help ease the process of scaling to new regions.
Accessibility to the best learning resources matters. It levels the playing field for all people and allows them to reach their full potential. But it’s not a black-and-white issue––it’s a spectrum with multiple dimensions––and software companies should strive to improve accessibility on every level.
