Can tabs do what PCs or bricks could

not do for education?

Wednesday, 16 November 2016

The education component of Budget 2017 has many positive
features. Unspecified infrastructure expenditures from the
previous budget have been removed. The new proposals, except
for the free tabs proposal, are mostly well-targeted. The higher
education spending proposals in particular show multiple
approaches to increase higher education opportunities, while not
shirking the Governments responsibilities.

The school education budget is the focus of this column. The

school education budget for 2016 was an ambitious one. The
allocation for 2016 quadrupled to Rs. 168.5 billion from Rs. 43.6
billion for 2015. There was excitement then that the Government
was committed to education and heeding the battle cry of
university teachers that the amount the Government expenditure
on education should be 6% of the GDP. In hindsight it was a
doomed initiative from the beginning. Nobody questioned the
wisdom of 6% and the Government added more money to the line
item and did some strange math to meet these unexamined
requirements. The center-periphery problem of a monolithic
ministry trying to reach out to 9,000+ schools is another issue
that spelled failure.
However, the reaction of the media, the activists and the public
was kneejerk. More spending is good. Lets celebrate was the
response. Nobody had time for deeper questions such as how is
the Ministry going to implement this? What is the expected
outcome? How will it be achieved? How will we know whether it
has been achieved, etc.?
Come Budget 2017, we see the same kneejerk reactions to
education spending. There was widespread dismay in social
media circles that education spending has been reduced from
2016. Nobody bothered to read the fine print which explained that
the by the third quarter the Ministry of Education has not been
able to spend a quarter of the amount allocated.

As the Finance Minister explains in Paragraph 88 of the

Budget speech, [W]e allocated in 2016, almost 3 times that of
the allocations made in 2014. However, the Ministry of Education
has been able to utilize only around Rs. 38,850 million at the end
of the 3rd quarter of 2016. We took careful stock of the situation
and therefore allocated almost Rs. 90,000 million for 2017. While I
admit that allocation for 2017 is less than that of 2016, it is
nevertheless 70 percent more than that of 2014. I will also be
proposing the provision of an additional allocation of Rs. 17,480
million to further strengthen the development in the education
sector.
Nobody can be blamed for not following four hours of a monotony
which we call a Budget speech, but Budget commentators should
have read the pertinent paragraphs before protesting. They
should have asked about the impediments to spending and
whether those have been removed, etc., the more important
questions.
A digital focus is evident in education spending for 2017
It takes a while to understand the Sri Lankan Budget. Allocation
for each ministry head is given in the appropriation bill. An annex
in the Budget speech lists a set of expenditures on programs
separately. For 2017, the total of such expenditures is Rs. 140
billion for some 60 plus items. This amount is about 5% of the

total budget of Rs. 2,700 billion but after paying for the upkeep of
ministries and a multitude of agencies, this is probably where the
Government gets some discretion in spending.
A comparison between the distribution of items in education
expenditure proposals in 2015 and 2016 is revealing.
For 2016, almost Rs. 62 billion was targeted for classrooms, labs,
sanitary facilities and other physical infrastructure but the amount
is reduced to Rs. 7.25 billion in 2017, a more achievable target
presumably.
This is a step in the right direction. Mahindodaya Labs by the
previous Government were built with one single design for 1,000
or so schools across the country. The labs got built but to what
effect we dont know. There is no formal evaluation but I
personally have seen labs unused several years after completion
with procured computers almost obsolete.
In implementing development projects, the ministry needs to find
a middle ground between efficiency of centrally controlled
procurements and effectiveness of local control.
Expenditures for capacity building through teacher training are to
be carried over from 2016 to 2017, but new initiatives are
proposed at Rs. 750 million for management training for
administrators, presumably to learn how to spend money better.
The new welfare initiatives for Rs. 3 billion include monthly grants
of Rs. 2,500 for 1,000 gifted students and another similar grant
for disable students. These are targeted and needed initiatives. A

health insurance scheme is offered for all students at a cost of Rs.

2.7 billion. This is an initiative with the possibility of much value
addition later and needs to be watched with interest.
The largest allocation of Rs. 10 billion is for digital initiatives. An
attempt is made to rectify the previous practice of putting PCs in
schools without a support structure by allocating Rs. 5 billion for
renting computers. That too is a new idea worth watching.
However, the idea of distributing free tabs for A/L students and
their teachers is a disturbing one. Where did that come from?
Where is the action plan??
A search for digital classroom on ICTA.lk produces only two
results. The first says ICTA aims to provide appropriate
infrastructure and solutions to facilitate the seamless delivery of
digital education and strengthen education for sustainable
development, a boilerplate statement.
A second entry is more interesting in that it has a request for
proposals for an ICT use survey of schools and for developing a
digital classroom strategy. With a concrete proposal to distribute
free Tabs included in the Budget already, it looks like the cart has
come before the horse.
The Finance Ministry too does not seem to have asked the right
questions when they added the line item into the Budget. As the
Finance Minister states: Honourable Speaker, we must create the
enabling environment for our students to be able to acquire
knowledge easily. We must give them a Smart Classroom for
which we have already allocated Rs. 6,500 million. To supplement
this venture, we will also provide free Tabs for almost 175,000

students who enter the Advanced Level (AL) classes and around
28,000 A/L teachers from 2017. I propose to allocate Rs. 5,000
million for this project. I invite the telecom service providers to
support this initiative by providing Wi-Fi connections.
What kind of knowledge? How will it be acquired? The Minister
should have requested more details before allocating Rs. 5 billion
for the purpose.

Digital classroom or digital youth?

The digital classroom, unless defined more broadly, is about using
technology in the classroom. Mobile devices can enable learning
outside the classroom too. Putting mobile devices in the hands of
16-18-year-olds is a new concept which should be more correctly
called digital youth, unless the initiative is linked to the
curriculum.
Has the Government thought through the outcomes of distributing
tabs free of charge? First, is there sufficient education content for
these tabs? Grade 12-13 in our school systems is a time when
teachers struggle to cover a heavy curriculum and students

invariably seek help outside. Does the Ministry have content

which can compete with what tuition masters provide?
If the aim is technology savvy youth who are able to seek
information on their own, even if access is limited to Facebook
and other social media, then it is a different story. What are the
various ways a 16-18-year-old can use mobile device? Parents
are wary of giving phones to youth. How would they feel about
Tabs with internet access? If internet access is forbidden by
parents or is not available at home, will we have too many
freebies lying around while the public is stuck with the cost? The
Parliament and the public deserve answers to these questions.
Why tabs?
A young entrepreneur who makes a living by providing IT and
English training to rural youth said he bought a Kindle for Rs.
9000 and is testing that for acceptance by youth attending his
classes. He is planning to test the Kindle as part of an English
language program that he is providing.
He also finds laptops to be more useful than tabs for achieving
learning objectives. He is also worried about cheap tabs. The
designers of the free Tabs program may have experience of youth
in their lives using iPads. Cheap tabs are a different story. Rs 5
billion for 200,000 students and their teachers roughly works out
to Rs. 25,000 per student for the unspecified use of a cheap
tablet. Is this good use of public money?
What do the research and experience tell us?

The literature on digital classrooms is very clear that the

acceptance and use of technology by teachers is essential to the
success of digital devices in classrooms. Our own systematic
survey of the literature shows that given sufficient tech support
and if teachers are convinced of the utility of the technology, they
will use technology in the classroom. Digital Bangldeshs initiative
on multimedia projectors for classrooms is an initiative which has
shown success.
According to the 2014 OECD report on ICT in the classroom, even
with generous support from the Government to train teachers and
provide the technology, the use of technology in the classroom is
limited in those countries. Also, technology investments are not
directly correlated with learning outcomes and neither is
technology use. For example, education achievements begin to go
down if students use the Internet for more than 1-2 hours in
school or outside of school.
The Governments free tabs thrust is aimed at youth aged 16-18,
most likely using tabs outside of the class. I am yet to uncover
research on the topic and the ICTA has great responsibility in
doing some exploring before action can be taken.
Digital strategy has to be in place before doling out
freebies
ICTS has done the right thing by seeking a baseline study and
developing a strategy based on that as per their announcement
last month. The better strategy would be to use the 2017 Budget
allocation to try out several approaches, look for ways to allow
more choice for youth and parents and schools, see how tabs or
other devices are used and then develop a strategy. It would be
gross negligence on the part of the Government to distribute

devices without knowing the expected mode of use or the

intended outcome.
Vouchers for ICT devices as prizes for various
extracurricular competitions
Dumping technology as freebies is the easiest way out. Following
up on the success of vouchers for school uniforms, ICTA should
expand the choice of devices for youth, by giving them vouchers
for purchase of a device of their choice.
Furthermore, instead of a freebie, youth should be given the
opportunity win vouchers for their competencies that indicate
readiness for responsible and creative ICT use.
In fact, why not award 1,000 vouchers, say, for each province for
students selected from a competition on creativity or some other
attribute/s that educators wish to cultivate but have difficulty in
doing so under the current exam-intensive system.
Let the winning students decide which device they want to
purchase. They can decide on a kindle, smartphones, a laptop for
some top-up money or other. Next ICTA should follow up on these
students to study their preferences and see how they use their
device of choice. Integration technology is not flash in the pan
activity. It takes patience and creativity to find the right approach.
Posted by Thavam