This week, our Director, Barry Mansfield, shared his thoughts on the failure of the UK education sector to embrace new technologies, highlighting the need for the UK government to seriously review the long-outdated structures that suffocate teacher agency and restrict young people's access to the digital economy.

EdTech: time for change in UK schools

"Over the summer, Gavin Williamson announced that he wanted ‘to overcome the challenges from the pandemic and level-up opportunity for all young people’ by… banning mobile phones. Really? Given his record, we should not be surprised by Williamson’s effortless non-sequitur of a proposal; we should, however, be seriously concerned about the government’s conscious determination not to embrace the digital skills that all our young people need.

Williamson’s intervention comes amid the well-meaning but vision-free preoccupation with remedial action over how best to help children catch up on lost learning during Covid. This conversation is not only representative of a procedural, unimaginative response to the impact of the pandemic – it is emblematic of a long-standing resistance to change in the education sector as a whole.

The Department for Education’s approach should be seen for what it is: a learned preference to avoid difficult conversations around educational purpose and structures and, instead, an eagerness to place the focus on manageable arguments over funding or political hot-button issues. It is a familiar and wearying failure, pushing the hard questions into the proverbial long grass. Meanwhile, the outcomes continue to restrict children’s access to essential skills."

Read the full article here: EdTech - It's Time For The UK Government To Get Real About Digital Technology

Read about the innovative integration of digital technologies at halcyon here: Digital Leadership

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