2.3.3. Educational Policy Reforms

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Despite the digital divide, nations all around the globe invest heavily in technology advancement and inclusion in the educational sphere. Technological advancement has had a traceable effect on how national educational policy all over the world has changed in the past decades (Kozma, 2008; 2011a; 2011b; Tondeur et al., 2007a; Voogt & Pelgrum, 2005). The first nationwide policies which included the importance of technology appeared in 1981 (Ham & Cha, 2009). Reviewing such documents – more specifically “national/central/federal policies, strategies, and master plans as well as nationwide initiatives and national projects” – of 67 countries, it was calculated that between 1981-85, 11.9% of the countries had some technology-inclusive policies, and this ratio continued to grow (Ham & Cha, 2009, p. 537). Between 1986-90, this number rose to 19.4%, between 1991-95 to 35.8% and between 1996-2000 to 68.7% (Ham & Cha, 2009, p. 537). This change is partly because G8 states quickly recognised the positive impact of technology on welfare and sustainable economic development (Kozma, 2008), and because “our society is changing from an industrial to an information society” (Voogt & Pelgrum, 2005, p. 157) in which individuals handle large amounts of data with the help of ICT devices. Such large amounts of data that are impossible to be processed by humans are also simply called big data, and as a result, these days many private companies and businesses require their workers to be able to work with data mining, spreadsheet operator, and/or other statistical software.

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As educational policy is closely linked to education politics, the texts of national curricula are an excellent source of analysis to see how certain countries decided to reflect the territorial gain of technology within the field of education (Kozma, 2008; 2011a; 2011b). To illustrate recent trends, Table 3 provides an overview of the rationales of ICT inclusion in the national curricula of some countries (based on Kozma, 2008). While countries can be grouped based on a certain set of rationales for including technology in their national curriculum, the categories are not always clear cut, and subcategories often overlap.
 

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Table 3 Strategic Educational ICT Policy Rationales
Rationale
Explanation
Example countries
Supports economic growth
Investment in technology-focused training creates highly skilled workforce, better-paid jobs, and improved productivity.
Jordan, Singapore
Promotes social development
Contributes to knowledge sharing, transparency, and strengthening democracy; develops digital literacy to meet the demands of the modern, technology-driven world with physical micro-level mobility investments (e.g., Campus Mundi, CEEPUS, Erasmus, Erasmus+) for cross-border collaborations.
(Member countries of the) European Union
Advances education reform
Sees the teacher as a facilitator in assisting learners to use technology to solve real-life problems through collaboration.
Australia, South Africa
Supports education management
Using technology to monitor learning and the quality of learning (e.g., testing, effectiveness of courses) for transparency and data-driven personalisation of learning.
Malaysia, The USA
Note. Based on Kozma (2008, pp. 1085–1089).
 

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Although progress has been made worldwide, the pace and source of adopting ICT-inclusive educational policies has been uneven. Despite being originated in the Western world and Western ideology, even Arab, Middle Eastern and North African countries have progressively adapted ICT as a separate school subject in their curricula (Ham & Cha, 2008). Additionally, an existing, highly technology-inclusive policy is not a prerequisite for a paradigm shift (Kozma, 2008); educational reforms concerning technology integration is not always a top-down process. The need for change can also reflect a bottom-up phenomenon, a consequence of social and cultural changes on the macro levels of society (Benini & Murray, 2014; Ham & Cha, 2008), such as pressure from schoolchildren or parents to include technology in their education.

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While technology has been an integral part of educational policy on a global scale and national curricula clearly reflects a country’s ideas on what kind of a vision they have on the future (Kozma, 2008), such analyses are often critiqued because there is not an evident link between what is written in the policy and what is happening in the actual classrooms (Ham & Cha, 2008; Tondeur et al., 2007a). The same is true to the quality of technology integration; what sometimes seems skilful integration does not always result in digital competency development (Hismanoglu, 2012b; McKeznie, 2001; Russell et al., 2003; Quin & Shuo, 2011), but these observations are to be drawn from empirical research (see 2.5).
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