Coalition Education IT policy and thinking 2011

from http://www.education.gov.uk/inthenews/speeches/a0073443/tim-loughton-to-the-bett-education-leaders-conference

Ian Littericks emphasis and [editorialising].

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And whether we see only the endless possibilities, or see only the risks, there’s no denying that technology is – as Microsoft’s Chief Executive Steve Bullmer once said – something that "makes real people more effective, every day, in some basic and fundamental thing that they want to do."

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As many of you will know, we have the highest levels of technology in our classrooms of anywhere in the European Union. The majority of our children have their own online learning space, and practically every school in this country is hooked up to – and in many cases making great use of – broadband. This is a huge credit to great headteachers and teachers, fantastic ICT suppliers like those exhibiting here and, of course, to young people themselves…

[and above all the last government and Becta?!]

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It’s no longer simply about shoehorning technology into the classroom. It’s about how we help schools to access and use it effectively. And it’s about how we help young people to benefit from innovation safely.

[There is then quite a bit about online safety, cyber bullying etc – the answer is "collective responsibility":]

That’s why my colleagues on the UK Council for Internet Safety, which I now co-chair, want to move increasingly towards tough selfregulation. With internet service providers having more responsibility for managing potentially harmful sites - and parents and children having greater power to report abuse.

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And there’s now a very clear, very determined commitment within the industry towards developing a robust and effective selfregulatory framework, that will combat cyber bullying and keep children safe…

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BSI has just awarded its first ever kitemark for parental control software to Net Intelligence, which we will be handing over shortly. A fabulous achievement on their part, and a hugely important one for two reasons in particular. Firstly, because it let’s us take advantage of the opportunities that technology brings and minimise the risks. Secondly, because it allows us to place technology at the centre of educational reform in the future – a crucial point I think, because while we are doing fantastically well in terms of bringing technology into the classroom, we sadly aren’t doing anything like as well when it comes to educating our children and young people to reach their full potential.

We know, for instance, that we’ve been slipping further and further behind our global competitors over the last few years…… with the OECD international performance tables showing that since the year 2000, we’ve fallen from 4th to 16th in science, from 7th to 25th in literacy, and from 8th to 28th in maths.

[This is actually a sloppy comparison, which has been repeated elsewhere in the papers. 6 of the countries ahead of us in the 2009 reading literacy table weren’t in the 2000 report so like for like we have moved from 7 to 19. See PISA http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programme_for_International_Student_Assessment. ]

[The definition of literacy is very much wider than being able to read books, it includes, for example, electronic texts, interacting on the web and interpreting a tube map. Making valid international and cross language comparisons must be very difficult and it will take much more academic folk than I to interpret what the drop in position  implies. The PISA methodology is described in http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/11/40/44455820.pdf. ]

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And we also know that there is now an historically high divide in attainment between those from the poorest backgrounds, and those from the wealthiest.

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Fortunately however, technology does provide a unique opportunity to help us regain that competitive edge by supporting us to deliver the  improvements we need to make. And in our recent schools White Paper, the Importance of Teaching, we set out a comprehensive programme of  reform for schools to allow us to build that truly world-class education system. That includes paying greater attention to improving teacher quality, granting greater autonomy to the front line, modernising curricula, making schools more accountable to their communities, harnessing detailed performance data, and encouraging professional collaboration so that we can become one of the world’s top performers - and close the gap between rich and poor. That is the challenge facing us – and technology – we think – will play a critical supporting role in meeting it.

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However, in order to derive the maximum benefit from this kind of innovation, education leaders have to have the final say over what technology they use, and when they use it. We don’t think that teachers or school business managers should come to BETT with a shopping list from central  government. The world of technology is simply too fluid for Whitehall to be able to decree what should, or shouldn’t be in the classroom. Instead, schools should come ready to make procurement decisions that are based on a detailed knowledge of their own pupils - and be ready to draw up their own wish list of technologies that will inspire young people.

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Whatever it is, and however it works, we know that if we want to be truly, truly ambitious about maintaining a technological edge in this country, we have to give teachers and school leaders that flexibility and power to make their own choices – and we also have to free up as much investment as we can for them to spend on technology. None of this, however, means that schools are being asked to work in isolation.

Over the coming months and years, government will continue to play a crucial supporting role – helping education leaders by taking on procurement and support for special educational needs; by supporting schools to achieve value for money in things like bulk software licensing; by identifying and sharing best practice as it evolves in the classroom, and by supporting suppliers to ensure value for money.

The straightforward reality though, is that schools, teachers and industry know the best way to extract value from technology in education. And it seems to me that the BETT exhibition is a perfect example of how those freedoms can be used most effectively to help teachers raise standards in our schools - and to take full advantage of the opportunities that technology creates.

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The future of education in this country depends on how well we equip young people to go on and succeed in their lives. And all of us know that if we are serious about achieving that ambition, it has to include giving them access to the very best that technology has to offer.

The time has come to take advantage of that opportunity by encouraging school leaders to come along to exhibitions like this, and decide for themselves what pupils need. The time has come to ensure that children and young people are able to take advantage of the wonders that technology brings – without the dangers.

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