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

policy. However, a further analysis of the content of the policies found that in most European countries, ICT-related
policies focused on the technology – hardware, software, networking, digital content – rather than its relationship
to pedagogy, curriculum, or assessment. ICT policy that only addresses these issues is not likely to have an impact
on schools and most certainly will not transform education.
This chapter and the rest of the book is focused on transformational change in which ICT policy supports systemic
education reform linked to economic and social development. Since the relationship between policy and change
is important but not suffi cient, the challenge for policy-makers who are committed to transformational education
change is not just to have an educational ICT policy but to formulate policies that have an impact on school
structures and classroom practices. To have a broad impact, these policies need to be systemic, aligned with
national needs and priorities, and do this within the nation’s developmental context.
Policy Development and Transformational Change
One way to think about policy is as systemic change that adds value to educational processes or outcomes is systemwide
(Centre for Educational Research and Innovation [CERI], 2009a, 2009b). From a systemic perspective, policies
can promote technology-based innovations, such as the introduction of digital learning resources or one-to-one
computing, which aims to improve the operation of a system, its overall performance, or the perceived satisfaction
of students, teachers or parents. The goal of the policy would be to implement these innovations throughout
the system. However, the innovation can become system-wide and yet not change the system itself; that is, the
innovation is adopted throughout the system, but the goals, practices, and structures of the system remain the
same. This certainly can be a worthy goal and its implementation a signifi cant accomplishment. However, the
emphasis in this paper is on transformational change – that is, policies intended not only to change all the components
of the education system but transform the system itself (UNESCO, 2002) so that education aligns with and supports
an emerging social and economic paradigm shift.
CERI (2009a, 2009b) describes a process of systemic innovation as one that includes an initiation phase, an
implementation phase, and a scaling-up phase, all of which are informed by monitoring and evaluation. Michael
Fullan (2007) identifi es a somewhat similar set of three phases in the educational change process: initiation,
implementation, and institutionalization. These change models adequately capture innovation that is intended
to become system-wide but they do not capture transformational reform in which the system itself is changed.
Social psychologist Kurt Lewin (1947; 1958) describes a somewhat similar, three-step model of the change
process: unfreezing, moving, refreezing. Lewin’s terms convey the existence of mutually reinforcing conditions that
characterize the current state, lock it in, and make change diffi cult to initiate. Over decades, each of the components
of the education system become tightly aligned with each other and fi nely tuned to the current paradigm–they
become “frozen.” The key to change is the need to unlock or “unfreeze” these interlocking conditions. Consequently,
Lewin’s terms better characterize transformation in which the system itself changes.
ICT policies to “unfreeze” the system
With education that supports the mass production paradigm, teachers are trained to use a standard pedagogy,
typically lecture and demonstration, to teach facts and simple procedures that are specifi ed by the national
curriculum. The national assessment uses standardized tests, typically multiple-choice, to measure the recall of facts
and the use of simple procedures, as specifi ed by the curriculum. Materials are developed and technologies used
to make standard teaching more effi cient and effective. Schools are organized in a way that makes the system run
smoothly. Within this paradigm, attempted change in one component is often inhibited by the mutually reinforcing
nature of connections between the components of the system. Teachers may explore interesting new pedagogical
approaches with computers only to realize that these are not included in the national curriculum nor measured on
the national assessments, so the explorations are abandoned and the computers may be put in the closet.
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