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The use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) has become an essential part of many people’s daily lives. It has truly transformed the way people communicate and connect, despite their personal distances. The digital world offers tremendous opportunities, but at the same time it also involves many challenges, such as the matter of unequal access to it.
Technology mirrors the societies that have created it, and intersecting spectrums of exclusion including gender, ethnicity, age, social class, geography, and disability have an impact on the access to and effective use of technologies (O’Donnell & Sweetman, 2018). The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the already existing digital divide around the world and widened these digital gaps even more.
The pandemic’s impact on the field of education globally is unquestionable. Around the world, learning moved online in a short period, and preparedness for this rapid shift varied greatly. Whereas some students have been able to study with the help of already existing digital tools during the pandemic, others have struggled with obtaining suitable digital equipment or internet access, which has challenged and hindered participation in learning. For some, the opportunities to participate in learning were completely lost.
According to a study by the United Nations Children’s Fund and International Telecommunication Union (2020), there is an evident lack of access to digital technology worldwide as two-thirds of children and young people (aged 25 years or less) do not have an internet connection at home. This has greatly created inequalities related to remote learning. In addition to barriers related to internet access and digital tools, digital literacy is another factor that can hinder online learning.
Furthermore, due to the pandemic, especially girls’ education has been even at a greater risk. As it could have been already witnessed during the Ebola outbreak years ago, these kind of international health crisis affect girls more than boys as they may not be able to return to school anymore (Lorente, Arrabal & Pulido-Montes, 2020). Especially girls face many obstacles in accessing school education in many countries around the globe and the pandemic has not made it any easier. These barriers, such as child marriage, early pregnancy, gender-based violence, female genital mutilation, sexual exploitation, and child labor, are usually heightened during crises (Taulo & Robles, 2021). It is yet to see what kinds of long-term effects on participation in education the pandemic will still have in the coming years.
The COVID -19 pandemic created a global learning disruption of unprecedented scale and severity, but at the same time, it also revealed a great potential for innovation in education and the reform of education systems (UNESCO, UNICEF, the World Bank & OECD, 2021). ICTs have already transformed learning in many ways, and more is yet to come. Importantly, ICTs have great potential in tackling the global education crisis and bridging the digital divide in education. How could digital tools help to secure inclusive education so that no one is left behind in learning? In addition, finding ways how ICTs could foster more inclusive participation and promote dialogue in learning would mean an important contribution to the development of online learning in general.
References:
Lorente, L. M. L., Arrabal, A.A. & Pulido-Montes, C. (2020). The Right to Education and ICT during COVID-19: An International Perspective. Sustainability, 12, 9091. DOI: 10.3390/su12219091
O’Donnell, A. & Sweetman, C. (2018). Introduction: Gender, Development and ICTs. Gender & Development, 26(2), 217-229. DOI: 10.1080/13552074.2018.1489952
Taulo, W.G. & Omar Robles, O. (2021). Where Are the Girls and Why it Matters as Schools Reopen? The UNICEF Blog. Retrieved from https://www.unicef.org/blog/where-are-the-girls-and-why-it-matters-as-schools-reopenh
UNESCO, UNICEF, the World Bank & OECD. (2021). What’s Next? Lessons on Education Recovery: Findings from a Survey of Ministries of Education amid the COVID-19 Pandemic, Paris, New York, Washington D.C.: UNESCO, UNICEF, World Bank.
United Nations Children’s Fund & International Telecommunication Union. (2020). How Many Children and Young People Have Internet Access at Home? Estimating Digital Connectivity During the COVID-19 Pandemic, New York: UNICEF.
I found your article very interesting to read. I think you make a great point about technology mirroring the society that created it. I agree I think the COVID-19 pandemic showed us the massive potential for innovation in education. As levels of internet access increase, it seems there may be a lot of potential for hybrid education models to exist. It will be interesting to see how such changes would impact society.
Thank you Annmarie for your comment! There is still a lot to discover about the possibilities of ICTs in learning. It will be really interesting to see how it is going to develop. Online learning is here to stay!
Nice post Hannele, and a topic I strongly relate to as a student and a teacher myself.
As a university student of an online programme I am most grateful that ICT gives me this opportunity, as I would not be able to attend classes otherwise.
As a kindergarten teacher I am also happy with what the kids and I could achieve through a screen in times of school closure. At this young age though, students need social interaction. Playing and togetherness are crucial for their development. ICT can be of help but in this case can’t replace on-site learning. I am saying this as I am aware that there’s people that in the name of education place children in front of a screen believing that it would do the job. We need to strike a balance between using and abusing ICT and be wary of technology as an easy fix to all our problems.
Thank you Lorenzo for your comment! Indeed, you raise a great viewpoint about the importance of social interaction. We learn in communication with others! Even though participating in online learning might be possible in terms of having the required access and tools, many can still feel isolated and alone. I think that this is an important aspect, how to make online learning more interactive and promote dialogue in learning, in the future in general!
Hannele, thank you for writing this blog post! I believe that the world-wide pandemic has only highlighted the fact that there are several inequalities when it comes to accessing ICT. Moreover, these issues have been there ever since the ICT revolution in the 1990’s, but have only become more visible due to COVID19. As you state, the bright side is that now societies have been forced to innovate ways that would ease people’s equal access to digital teaching materials, for instance. However, as you discuss in your blog post, these innovations do not erase the fact that there are still plenty of inequalities that need to be tackled – or that have not even been discovered yet.
Thank you Kaisa for your comment! I totally agree with you that there are several inequalities related to ICTs and these have already existed for a long time. Now that the pandemic has shed light on the reality, a positive outcome is that the importance of change and amending these inequalities has been recognized more than ever. However, new development responses are still needed to tackle these inequalities, and it is not an easy task to do.