Technology is Driving Educational Inequality: An overlooked modern issue

Technology use in education has risen exponentially across the world. Photo by Glenn Carstens-Peters.

It’s not uncommon to see two school districts in neighboring towns having vastly different budgets, resources, and instructional quality. And usually, this lack of capital leads to low educational achievement amongst students. A study done in two fourth grade classrooms from Bloomington Public School District 87’s technology pilot program, revealed that students who used new laptops and ed-tech resources scored up to 20% higher than students who didn’t have access to the same technology. Subsequently, a Pew Research Center study found 15% of US households with school-aged children don’t have reliable internet access, meaning a lot of students aren’t able to finish their school assignments, setting them further back in class. However, the need for technology, especially for students, in educational settings is growing exponentially. According to a new survey from the University of Phoenix College of Education found that about 63% of K–12 teachers use technology in the classroom daily, and that daily classroom tech use is up from 55% in 2016.

Does this mean that as we try to increase technology use, we’re perpetuating educational inequality?

The Digital Divide is Widening

COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced more than 1 billion school children around the world to continue their education from home, yet many lack the technology necessary for remote learning, leaving them at risk of falling behind in their education, UNICEF warned earlier this month. Even in tech hubs like NYC, absentee rates have skyrocketed after moving to remote learning amongst low-income students.

Billions of students across the world moved to remote learning during 2020. Photo by Compare Fibre.

Third-World Nations

“Nearly 1.2 billion children worldwide are out of school due to closures, yet in 71 countries, more than half of the population does not have internet access,” says Global Citizen. In third-world nations like Chad, only 1 of 100 households have common technology like televisions.

In-person learning in a third-world nation. Photo by Doug Linstedt.

Low-Income Domestic Households

School-age children in lower-income households are especially likely to lack broadband access. Roughly one-third of households with children ages 6 to 17 and whose annual income falls below $30,000 a year do not have a high-speed internet connection at home, compared with just 6% of such households earning $75,000 or more a year. This directly causes these students to not be able to do their digital homework. This aspect of the digital divide — often referred to as the “homework gap” — can be an academic burden for teens who lack access to digital technologies at home.

Photo by Lagos Techie.

Technology Can Still Be Helpful

Affordable Ed-Tech Solutions

More and more startups and nonprofits have been developing affordable ed-tech solutions for low-income students. Paul Vincent, the founder of EnSo, is catering to the needs of low-income schools in Kenya with the digital tool-tablet. His innovative method helps in imparting personalized teaching through technology and how these students using it can nurture their skills to turn independent in life. BRCK has a program called Moja which a free public WiFi network. Their website states that “anyone within range of the signal can connect to the internet for free and access Moja’s stored content to watch shows, listen to music, or read books.”

Moja is a public WiFi network by BRCK. Photo by BRCK.

Helping English Second Language Students

According to the National Education Association, by 2025, English Second Language (ESL) students are expected to make up an estimated 25% of public school students. Research has found that educational technology is, and will be, the key to teaching ESL students.

There are a variety of cutting-edge technology, like NLP, speech-to-text, TTS, and others, can lead to a variety of new lessons for students and help them learn concepts faster and more effectively. Software tools can not only be used to help instructors improve communication with their students, but also to bolster English skills. Overall, this addresses a critical problem in today’s ESL classrooms.

ESL students can use ed-tech to their advantage. Photo by Leonardo Toshiro Okubo.

What should we make of this?

Many jobs have minimum educational requirements, and without meeting these requirements, you won’t get an interview. The Georgetown Public Policy Institute emphasizes that employers are increasingly requiring a college degree and estimates that by 2018, 60 percent of jobs will require a bachelor’s degree. As we move to a more automated world, with many manual labor jobs being replaced with robots, we need more skilled talent in the field, with critical thinking and problem-solving skills. This requires a well-educated student body, making the addressing of educational inequality in society a critical topic of discussion.

If we want to make technology more accessible to stop this digital divide, thus not perpetuating educational inequality, greater investments in technological programs must be made. Local and national governments must support school districts in providing more students with technological resources. Overall, we need to recognize this modern issue and create effective policies to address it as soon as possible.

🔑 Takeaways

1. Technology use is rising, but it means widening the digital divide, thus perpetuating educational inequality.
2. Efforts to make technology more accessible for low-income students have started the conversation in bridging this divide.
3. Society must make addressing this modern issue a top priority.

Citations

• https://www.insidehighered.com/digital-learning/blogs/technology-and-learning/technology-driving-educational-inequality
• https://edtechmagazine.com/k12/article/2017/09/classroom-tech-use-rise-infographic
• https://medium.com/@madathilvisakh/technologys-role-educational-inequality-1f5b4329e8cc
• https://www.epi.org/publication/education-inequalities-at-the-school-starting-gate/
• https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/covid-19-school-closures-remote-learning-access/
• https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/low-income-students-technology-education/
• https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/10/26/nearly-one-in-five-teens-cant-always-finish-their-homework-because-of-the-digital-divide/
• https://edtechreview.in/trends-insights/insights/2798-affordable-edtech-tool-low-income-communities
• https://edtechmagazine.com/k12/article/2020/05/leveraging-technology-can-help-english-language-learners-graduate

Thank you so much for reading!

Shivam Syal is a 16 y/o disruptive innovator, computer science enthusiast, and emerging entrepreneur. Currently, he is looking for ways to use management and technology to address social inequalities arising out of unequal opportunities that are caused by disabilities, socioeconomic status, and global disparities.

Connect with him here 👇

shivamsyal.com | linkedin.com/in/shivamsyal | github.com/shivamsyal