By Michael Trucano
When I started working full time exploring issues related to the use of educational technologies in developing countries about a dozen years ago, many ministries of education would express their desires for introducing computers in schools by saying things like “We want something that can enable students and teachers to do x and y and z”.
More recently, this conversation has switched in many places, as increasing numbers of ministries (and especially their most senior officials) have initiated their related planning processes by saying, “We need a computer that costs $___”.
The implications of this shift on planning practices in many places have actually been pretty profound.
Now, it is true that, in the early days, the initial rationales behind putting computers in schools were expressed in rather vague terms (e.g. “We want children to access the world of information on the Internet”). That said, such formulations often presented a useful starting point for discussions of what the educational goals of a particular ICT programme for schools might be. For the past half-dozen years or so, however, it appears to me that there has been a much greater focus in many quarters on only the retail prices of various devices, with discussions of what specific learning goals these devices are meant to help meet – and how – shunted to the side.
I recently heard, for example, of at least one place that has been distributing huge numbers of laptops to teachers based on price point alone, sporting technical specs that are out of date and with little attention on how these computers are actually meant to be used. One practical consequence of this is that the laptops themselves are seen as “junk” by the teachers who receive them, and so they are not used. Penny wise, pound foolish, as my grandmother used to say.
The cost of the end-user device is typically only a fraction (and often a small fraction) of the actual “costs” to a system associated with the introduction of a given technology – at least if it is meant to be integrated into the “system”. And if research on ICT use in education is clear on one thing, it is that simply buying hardware – and nothing else – and expecting positive things to happen may not be the most prudent course of action!
How big of a fraction? It depends. Research studies have it ranging anywhere from 5-20% over a period of five years or so (depending on definitions of “total cost of operation” and the variables considered). Absent complementary investments in technical support and maintenance, teacher training, content development and deployment – and typically the re-engineering of various current processes as well – the end value or impact of investments in ICT may be negligible.
While one cost component is regularly (and dramatically) dropping, the price of other components – much larger in aggregate – is often not dropping as well (and may, in fact, actually increase in some cases). Estimating costs related to ICT use is often rather tricky, and the cost savings realised as a result of drops in hardware prices may not have as large an impact on the overall cost equation as one may expect.
My point is not to criticise the organisations behind various low-cost laptop initiatives (including COL), the devices themselves, nor the larger movements focussing on providing low-cost computers to students. What I do mean to criticise is the often single-minded focus, even obsession, on the retail price of ICT devices alone, which is in many ways a distraction from more fundamental discussions of the uses of educational technologies to meet a wide variety of educational goals in ways that are relevant, appropriate and cost-effective.
Mike Trucano is the World Bank’s Senior ICT and Education Policy Specialist, serving as the Bank’s focal point on the topic within the education sector. His blog, EduTech: A World Bank Blog on ICT in Education, is at http://blogs.worldbank.org/edutech.