Transforming education: the power of ICT policies - Commonwealth ...

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Introduction The dissemination and use of information and communications technologies (ICT) in schools has come to be seen by education policy-makers as a signifi cant opportunity. They are attracted to the prospect that ICT can improve student achievement, improve access to schooling, increase effi ciencies and reduce costs, enhance students’ ability to learn and promote their lifelong learning, and prepare them for a globally competitive workforce. As the power and capability of computers have increased, as they have become interconnected in a worldwide web of information and resources, as they provide a conduit for participation and interaction with other people, as they have become linked to other devices, and as their costs have come down, policy-makers, particularly those in developing countries, have come to see ICT as a viable, and even dramatic, way of responding to the multiple challenges that they face. Once policy-makers consider making signifi cant investments in ICT, a host of questions emerge: How many computers are needed in a school? Where should they be located? How should the network architecture be structured? How should the computers be distributed equitably? What additional resources are needed to support their use? What kind of training do teachers need to take advantage of these resources? How can they use them in their teaching? Are these uses effective? Are these even the right questions? The position taken in this book is that while these questions represent important implementation issues, they are not the questions that should frame ICT policy. ICT can have a greater impact when the policies and programmes designed to implement them are crafted in the broader context of social and economic goals and when they are implemented in support of coordinated change of all the components of the education system, aligned to a vision of economic development and social progress – that is, when ICT policies and programmes support educational transformation. The world is experiencing a major shift from an economy and society based on mass production to one based on knowledge creation. This shift has signifi cant implications for the development of human resources and for changes in all of the components of the education system, not just the use of ICT. Within this context, the driving questions that frame ICT policy are: What is the nation’s vision of how education can support economic and social progress, and what are the potential roles of ICT in supporting educational transform aligned to these goals? The book examines the range of educational experiences, practices, and issues and presents them in a way that can be used by decision makers crafting ICT policy in education. However, with this chapter, the book begins by considering the broader technological, economic, and social trends that have been sweeping the globe and moving toward an information economy and knowledge society. It examines the dramatic increase in capabilities and use of ICT and their related social and economic impact – positive and negative – in both developed and less developed nations. The chapter then examines research on the impact of ICT on education. So far, ICT have had much less impact on education systems than they have had on the economy or society, as a whole, in large part because the education system, in general, is now out of sync with ICT-based economic and social developments. The chapter ends with a call to transform education in a way that will advance the social and economic development goals of a country. The second chapter goes on to consider the implications of these global technological, social, and economic trends for educational transformation and the use of ICT to support these changes. Building on earlier work (UNESCO, 2002; Kozma, 2005; UNESCO, 2008; Kozma, in press), the chapter presents a framework – the Knowledge Ladder – that provides educational decision-makers with a way of thinking about policies that integrate ICT plans and programmes with other components of the educational system (such as curriculum, pedagogy, teacher training, assessment, and school organization) and with national policies, in a way that addresses the broader social and economic goals of the country and moves toward an information economy and knowledge society. Finally, the chapter reviews the policy development process and provides decision-makers with recommendations and suggestions for how they can coordinate ICT with the broader development goals and education reform agenda. 4 | Transforming Education: The Power of ICT Policies
Five subsequent chapters review the policies, programmes, and experiences in range of regional and developmental settings – Jordan, Namibia, Rwanda, Singapore, and Uruguay. The fi nal chapter draws on issues introduced in the early chapters, analyses the fi ndings across case studies, and considers their implications for educational policy, change, and transformation. This publication is an offering of the UNESCO Division of Education Strategies and Capacity-Building. The education programmes of the United Nations and UNESCO address many of the diverse purposes and goals that confront education policy-makers. For example, the Millennium Development Goals (MDG), Education for All (EFA), the UN Literacy Decade (UNLD), and the Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (DESD) all aim to reduce poverty and improve health and the quality of life and view education as an important contribution to these goals (UNESCO, 2005a). All of these aim to increase the equality of women and men and advance the human rights of all, particularly minorities. All are based on the belief that education is a key to development and a way of enabling people to fulfi ll their potential and take increasing control over decisions that affect them. The EFA and DESD place emphasis on the quality of learning. UNLD and EFA both place an emphasis on literacy as central to basic education and future learning. Beyond a high-quality basic education, the UNESCO International Commission on Education for the 21st Century (Delors, et al., 1999) contends that learning throughout life and participation in the learning society are essential for meeting the challenges of a rapidly changing world. Furthermore, ICT holds the unique promise of providing equal and universal access to knowledge in support of sustainable development (UNESCO, 2005b). Within this context, UNESCO has also produced a number of resources for policy-makers considering the use of ICT in education, such as ICT in Education (UNESCO, 2002), the ICT in Education Toolkit 1 and the ICT Competency Standards for Teachers (UNESCO, 2008). UNESCO has also produced a world report entitled Towards Knowledge Societies which recognizes that ICT have the potential to enable many individuals, fi rms, communities, in all regions of the planet, to address economic and social challenges with greater effi ciency and imagination (UNESCO, 2005b). This book complements and builds on these and is yet another resource for education decision-makers to help them craft policies and programmes that address their educational goals and priorities and advance social and economic development. Historic Development of ICT and Recent Trends Many of the momentous economic and social changes that have been experienced in the late twentieth and early twenty-fi rst centuries have been facilitated by or are directly due to a dramatic increase in the capabilities and availability of information and communications technologies. The remarkable uptake of ICT has not only affected the technology and telecommunications sectors but rippled through nearly every aspect of the economy and society in many countries. How is it that this technology could have such a broad impact on the world? The Dramatic Increase in the Power of ICT First, the increased impact of ICT is due to a dramatic increase in its power. ICT cover a broad range of technologies. While commonly associated with computers, the term also includes other informational media, such as handheld devices, television, radio and even print. To these information technologies can be added communications technologies, such as telephones and networks. While this defi nition hardly leaves anything out, the power of the term comes from the convergence of the ever-increasing information processing capabilities of computers and the information exchange capabilities of networks. It is the combined processing and networking power of contemporary ICT that has launched a global socio-economic paradigm shift when other, earlier technologies like radio and television did not. 1 ICT in Education Toolkit, UNESCO Bangkok, www.ictinedtoolkit.org The Technological, Economic, and Social Contexts | 5
Page 1 and 2: United Nations Cultural Organizati
Page 3 and 4: Published by the United Nations Edu
Page 5 and 6: Table of contents Foreword Preface
Page 7 and 8: Preface Information and Communicati
Page 9: Chapter 1 The Technological, Econom
Page 13 and 14: Telephones Communications technolog
Page 15 and 16: Country Population (Millions) Econo
Page 17 and 18: construction, retailing) accounted
Page 19 and 20: organization structure shifts to ma
Page 21 and 22: (World Bank, 2005). With a national
Page 23 and 24: Beyond an impact on achievement in
Page 25 and 26: Chapter 2 A Framework for ICT Polic
Page 27 and 28: Education Tuned for Mass Production
Page 29 and 30: apple Providing the skills needed f
Page 31 and 32: subjects to understand and solve co
Page 33 and 34: a certain constellation of conditio
Page 35 and 36: Consequently, signifi cant change r
Page 37 and 38: Most often, a nation will combine t
Page 39 and 40: More than 30 countries have begun t
Page 41 and 42: as the knowledge society. These cha
Page 43 and 44: Chapter 3 Case Study: Singapore Phi
Page 45 and 46: apple students possessed basic skil
Page 47 and 48: The Context Singapore, located at t
Page 49 and 50: will be examined in the four core s
Page 51 and 52: Workforce Continuing Education Beyo
Page 53 and 54: expressed concerns that the fi gure
Page 55 and 56: Goals MP2 encourages the effective
Page 57 and 58: the schools’ initiatives by provi
Page 59 and 60: 3. Improve the sharing of best prac
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Please don’t remove this word.ass
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items are usually included: manpowe
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Koh (2006) described a case where L
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these is the company, Playware Stud
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Koh and Lee further elaborated on t
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computer ratio of less than 10:1; S
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Chapter 4 Case Study: Namibia Shafi
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new economies that emerge from ICT
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22% in 2002) and an estimated 15.3%
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In 2009, the GRN also made efforts
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extremely high levels of inequality
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It proposes that when used appropri
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problem solving; and learning to le
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The Implementation Plan places the
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The Policy Rationale The policy rat
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Stakeholder Category Stakeholder Ro
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Partnerships Currently in Existence
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Government stimulate the developmen
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apple That a number of successful c
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Chapter 5 Case Study: Jordan Taysee
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GCC Gulf Cooperation Council GITR G
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of the labour force is comprised of
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Table 2: Summary of Strengths, Weak
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Figure 1: Education Structure in Jo
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Policy Features Policy Objectives I
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The Ministry of Education has devel
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apple increasingly engaging various
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Intranet to facilitate data interch
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Table 7: A Comparison of the Comput
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Table 9: ICT Literacy and ICT Integ
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evenues could surpass USDone billio
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the Development Coordination Unit.
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delivery of ICT-related services, p
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Within the MoE itself, each Managin
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In the case of education, the Minis
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Chapter 6 Case Study: Uruguay J. En
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Abbreviations and Acronyms AGESIC A
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Uruguay is categorized as an “upp
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As it can be appreciated, the gener
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apple Implement the national inter-
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Table 4: Education levels in Urugua
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Table 9: Indicators Related to Scho
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Policy Features Overview of ICT in
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education policy, but placed itself
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Implementation Framework What plans
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In case of a technical problem, use
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To illustrate the resources current
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What are the national conditions th
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apple Creating a grant fund for new
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Summarizing, Ceibal is a policy dri
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What modalities/mechanisms instrume
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equired actions to materialize the
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The design of the evaluation consid
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initiatives were part of the pilot
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Figure 17: Percentage of Children t
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Conclusion The information presente
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Executive Summary Rwanda has been a
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to the country’s shift towards su
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Rwanda ranks 143rd out of 154 count
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that are not designed for teaching
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These policy objectives are informe
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It also proposes that ICT be used i
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Figure 2: Finance Planning Framewor
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The Policy Development Process Step
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Table 6: Current Partners in ICT fo
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improving the quality of tertiary e
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Monitoring and Evaluation The ICT i
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However, the realization of Vision
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Introduction All of the countries r
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Technical support: Schools enjoyed
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apple structuring the education sys
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Pedagogical and Curricular Change T
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encouraged to apply project-based l
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to spur the economy. The country is
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Enablers This section focuses on th
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On the other hand, the case of Urug
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Monitoring and Evaluation The polic
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Scaling up in the context of this p
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way of transforming education so as
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Is Leap-frogging Possible? The effo
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the appropriate ICT resources and p
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technological literacy and pedagogi
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National Agency for Research and In
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--. 2009b. Working Out Change: Syst
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Gerster, R. and Zimmerman, S. 2005.
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--. 2009. Measuring the Information
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Linden, L., Banerjee, A., and Dufl
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Miniwatts Marketing Group. 2009. Ur
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Quale, A. Trends in instructional I
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United Nations Development Programm
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World Bank. 2008a. MENA Development
Page 243 and 244:
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