Techlearning blog

Although intervention in the form of initiatives and funding may be made for the best of reasons, I think there are a number of points to consider.

First, what exactly are the "best of reasons"? The necessity for increased funding and "more robust" targets is usually couched in terms of economic necessity, ie international competitiveness. Is that correct though? If the Flat World thesis is true, most of the jobs are going to the countries which, by our standards, are less well developed.

Second, no government ever seems to acknowledge the existence of the law of unintended consequences. In the UK, for example, all pupils are meant to have an eportfolio by 2008. The idea is that this "thing" will be available to them throughout their lives, thereby embodying and realising the vision of lifelong learning. In theory. Unfortunately, nobody thought to define exactly what an eportfolio is (hence the reason I referred to it as a "thing" a moment ago), or the standards it should conform to. As a consequence, most eportfolios are proprietary, meaning that anything you deposit in them will not necessarily be available to you once you have left that institution, and they all have different functionality.

Third, and perhaps the most compelling reason not to have government funding, is the fact that the money will almost certainly be wasted to some degree. This can be surmised by applying a set of rules laid down by Milton Friedman, the economist, many years ago. He said that people have two basic motivations when spending money: economising, ie paying as little as possible, and getting value for money. He then went on to depict four scenarios:

Scenario one: spending your own money on yourself

You have every incentive to economise, and every incentive to get the best value for money. So no surprises there.

Think in terms of buying a birthday present for a co-worker. Well, you definitely have an incentive to economise, because you worked hard for that money, right? But as for value for money, well -- it's the thought that counts, isn't it?

No need to economise here, because it's not your money; but you certainly want the best out of it, don't you? Think expense account here.

No need to economise, because you don't see it as your money, and no point in taxing yourself over the value for money issue because you are not going to benefit directly anyway. This is the Government spending scenario, in which someone in officialdom is spending money taken from someone else (the tax payer), and spending it on someone else again (the education system).

Has Government intervention made any difference? Well, you could argue that, in the UK at least, it has led to a faster adoption of broadband, and internet access in general. Maybe. But I think one could argue equally well that business and industry got on with it without all that, and in a much more real way. What do I mean by that? Well, in the UK, something like 99% of schools have internet access. Great stuff. But some, hopefully a minute minority now, define "access" as available every Wednesday afternoon when the part-time school librarian wheels out the only computer in the school that can be plugged into a phone socket. I don't think you would find the average business interpreting "access" in that way.

The same goes for Web 2.0. Whilst Government in general, including school districts and local authorities, have been contemplating their navels and trying to plug every conceivable (and inconceivable) loophole, businesses have just got on with using instant messaging, wikis, even MySpace to improve their bottom line.

So what would happen if all the funding was cut? Well, I'll be able to give you a more definitive answer next year, because that's exactly what's happening in England, but let's speculate for now. It seems to me that the following will occur if the free market is working efficiently.

First, a lot of jobs paid for by public funds will start to disappear, and this is actually happening now in England. This is clearly a distressing time for the individuals concerned, but from a long-term perspective it indicates that the market is starting to allocate resources, in this case labour, in a different, and hopefully more efficient, way.

Second, without funding, some schools will not invest in technology, some will invest even more, because they will divert money that under the old rules should have been spent on something else, and others will invest in different technology as the targets associated with the funding (such as pupil:computer ratios) are abandoned. Parents and their children will be able to find out how the school has invested in technology and how it is using it, and make up their own minds about whether the spending is fit for purpose. Obviously, this view is predicated on the assumption that schools will be required to make all such information available to the public, which of course it should be. Digital divide? Without state funding, and with the right approach to tax rules, companies could have an incentive to sponsor schools in their area, or even equip them directly rather than merely disposing computers because they happen to be a couple of years old.

Third, there will be a lot more innovation. I happen to think most Government funding stifles innovation. I recall in the UK 10 years ago people at conferences asking Government representatives whether, for the sake of being able to show that they have met their targets, a whiteboard counts as several computers, or whether a simple handheld device that didn't have much functionality beyond the basics counted as a laptop. Ridiculous! Schools should be allowed to just get on with it. Yes, there will be some schools that decide to remain in the 19th century, let alone the 20th. But if they are not delivering the goods in terms of job prospects, higher education opportunities, and good all-round education, parents will vote with their feet if they are able to, and if they are delivering the goods, why does it matter?

OK, perhaps I am being somewhat optimistic, and what we need is a baseline in terms of expected technology investment and use, the curriculum, child safety and other considerations. Fair enough. But by and large, I believe it's time for Governments to back off, and let us get on with the job. To paraphrase Pink Floyd: Leave us educators alone!

If you're attending the NECC show, please drop by and say "hello": I'll be running a poster session about the development of Coming of Age: An Introduction to the NEW Worldwide Web, on Monday June 25th, 9am to 11am, in GWCC Galleria (Posters); and a Birds of a Feather session on Tuesday June 26th at 4.45 to 6.15, in GWCC Galleria B308.