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A World Bank Blog on ICT use in Education

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Exploring issues related to the use of information and communication technologies to benefit education in developing countries

Latin America & Caribbean

Surveying ICT use in education in Brazil

Submitted by Michael Trucano on Tue, 10/25/2011 - 12:08

Brazilian students queuing for their daily bread -- will their daily Internet be far behind?An on-going series in the New York Times ('Grading the digital school') is exploring the impact of educational technology programs in U.S. schools. One recent article in this series noted that "Hope and enthusiasm are soaring here. But not test scores." This phenomenon is not limited to schools in rich countries like the United States, of course:

"Although the government has invested resources in ensuring the broad use of ICT in education, the results of this use in meeting the goals and targets of educational programs are, however, virtually unknown."

This statement, which could apply to scores of countries around the world, can be found near the very start of TIC Educação 2010 ("ICT Education 2010"), a fascinating new survey on the use of ICTs in Brazilian schools.

One-to-one computing in Latin America & the Caribbean

Submitted by Michael Trucano on Tue, 06/21/2011 - 15:14

unoA recent paper from Eugenio Severin and Christine Capota of the Inter-american Development Bank (IDB) surveys an emerging set of initiatives seeking to provide children with their own educational computing devices. While much of the popular consideration of so-called "1-to-1 computing programs" has focused on programs in the United States, Canada, Western Europe and Australia, One-to-One Laptop Programs in Latin America and the Caribbean: Panorama and Perspectives provides a useful primer for English-speaking audiences on what is happening in middle and low income countries like Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, Nicaragua, Paraguay, Peru, Trinidad & Tobago, Uruguay, and Venezuela.  (There is of course a Spanish version available as well.) 


While some of these cases are becoming better known globally -- most notably those of Uruguay and Peru, where the IDB has not coincidentally been quite active -- I expect many people from other parts of the world will be surprised to learn about the extent of activity in the region. Indeed, a lot is happening in the region.  While the report does not aim to be comprehensive (indeed, ministry of education officials in a few Caribbean island nations have already noted that their 1-to-1 pilot initiatives are not included in the survey, and those knowledgeable about the field may note that there are, for example, programs from U.S. states that are not listed here), it does consolidate for the first time related regional information in one place for easy reference, while noting that "promising in concept, one-to-one initiatives thus far have had little implementation time and varying results".

What's next for Plan Ceibal in Uruguay?

Submitted by Michael Trucano on Fri, 06/10/2011 - 11:29

At a recent workshop in Montevideo convened by UNESCO and the IDB and hosted by Plan Ceibal on "The Role of ICT/Education Policy in Education Transformation", a new publication was unveiled that included short case studies of a number of countries -- including Uruguay.  (This publication is expected to appear on the UNESCO web site shortly -- we'll add a link in the comments section below once it is available. Presentations from the complementary 'open seminar' are available here.)  Later this year, the World Bank expects to publish a short case study looking at how Plan Ceibal has developed as an institution, and what some of the key issues might be for an organization like this going forward. 


Why all the attention on what's happening in Uruguay, you may ask? Regular readers of this blog will know the answer, as the Uruguayan experience has been the subject of a number of EduTech posts over the past two years, and featured at a number of high profile international knowledge sharing events supported by the World Bank, the Inter-american Development Bank, the OECD and other international institutions. Judging by our server logs, we have picked up a lot of new readers in recent months, and so we thought we'd have another quick look at what is happening in the only country in the world where all students in publicly-supported primary schools have been provided with their own free laptop computer.


Now that (almost) all Uruguayan schools are connected to the Internet and work is well underway to put free laptops in the hands of all public secondary school students, Plan Ceibal is in many ways entering phase two of its ambitious initiative.  The technical infrastructure is (largely) there --  the challenge now is to maintain it, to improve and enhance it, and, more importantly, to ensure that it is used effectively to support a variety of new and improved teaching and learning practices that will help Uruguayan students developed the knowledge, skills and attitudes to succeed in increasingly globalized, knowledge economies.

Educational Technology Use in the Caribbean

Submitted by Michael Trucano on Fri, 05/13/2011 - 12:38

new horizons in the Caribbean?Does the Eastern Caribbean education system adequately prepare youth for the global economy? This was a question posed by a World Bank paper back in 2007, which examined how some of the unique characteristics of small island developing nations in the Caribbean influence attempts to answer this question.  The use of information and communication technologies within formal schooling systems is seen by many to be an increasingly relevant -- and important -- tool to impact teaching and learning practices across the region.  In 2009 two publications from infoDev sought to document activities and progress in this area, and key policymakers from ten countries recently met in Barbados to take stock of where things stand and help chart a course for the future.


Barbados was in many ways an ideal place for such an exchange.  The country's Education Sector Enhancement Programme (ESEP -- known in an earlier incarnation as Edutech 2000) has been perhaps the most far-reaching (and expensive) initiative to explore the use of ICTs in schools in the region.

Top World Bank EduTech blog posts of 2010

Submitted by Michael Trucano on Tue, 01/04/2011 - 22:46

ten from 2010The World Bank EduTech blog recently had its second birthday.  As we did last year, we thought we'd gather together an idiosyncratic collection of 'top posts' and themes from the past year exploring issues related to the use of information and communication technologies to benefit education in developing countries. 

Every week, the blog informally attempts to highlight particular initiatives, studies and emerging trends that we think -- based on regular interactions with government officials, NGOs, researchers and companies active in this area in developing and developed countries around the world -- might be of interest to a wider audience. It is also one small part of a larger movement at the World Bank -- symbolized perhaps most potently by the institution's Open Data initiative -- to provide greater transparency to some of the sorts of information, conversations and discussions that previously were accessible only to limited groups of stakeholders and partners. At least in the case of the World Bank's work related to ICT use in education, blogging has proven to be a useful mechanism to share perspectives and 'think aloud in public' along with our partners, expert practitioners and our critics, as well as with people who are simply interested in a particular topic.

Without further ado ...

Learning from a randomized evaluation of OLPC in Peru

Submitted by Michael Trucano on Fri, 12/10/2010 - 15:52

some times the goals are clear to see -- it's just challenging to get there | image credit: Martin St-Amant - Wikipedia - CC-BY-SA-3.0The Inter-american Development Bank (IDB) recently released the first set of results from its on-going, multi-year randomized evaluation of the impact of the OLPC project in Peru.
Experimental Assessment of the Program "One Laptop Per Child" in Peru (Spanish version here) is the first rigorous attempt to examine the impact of the largest '1-to-1 computing' initiative in a developing country.  This evaluation, done in concert with the Ministry of Education, looks at the ambitious program to provide computing resources to multi-grade rural elementary schools in some of the poorer communities of Peru.

Learning from national ICT/education agencies

Submitted by Michael Trucano on Wed, 11/10/2010 - 10:30

KERIS -- at the cutting edgeOver 100 education policymakers from 32 countries gathered last week in Seoul to share lessons, experiences and opinions in response to the following question:

How should an education system structure itself to meet new challenges and take advantage of new opportunities related to the use of information and communication technologies, and what roles and responsibilities could/should a dedicated ICT/education agency or unit play?

This was the theme of the fourth global symposium on ICT and education, an annual event that the World Bank has co-sponsored with the Korean Education & Research and Information Service (KERIS) and the Korean Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (MEST) and other partners, including UNESCO Bangkok, Intel and the IDB. (Proceedings from previous symposia are available here, here, here and here.)

What happens when *all* children and teachers have their own laptops

Submitted by Michael Trucano on Fri, 05/14/2010 - 16:28

results from the widespread use of educational technologies are just beginning to bloom all over UruguayWhat happens when *all* children and teachers have their own laptops -- this is usually phrased as a question, but a few places are allowing us to begin to reformulate this into a declarative sentence.  One such place is the state of Maine in the northeastern United States; another is the South American country of Uruguay, where under Plan Ceibal all primary school teachers and students in government schools now have their own free laptops (previous blog posts about the Uruguayan experience can be found here and here).

Alicia Casas de Barrán, the director of the National Archives of Uruguay, spoke yesterday at the World Bank about what is actually happening under Plan Ceibal.  Through various examples, she highlighted the fact that many of the 'externalities' resulting from this ambitious initiative may in fact be central to its eventual value to Uruguayan society.


Top EduTech posts for 2009

Submitted by Michael Trucano on Fri, 01/01/2010 - 00:01

we look forward to serving up more food for thought in 2010 | image courtesy of the Wikipedian Lisarlena, used according to terms of its CC license, see bottom of post for more infoThe World Bank EduTech blog has just completed its first year of publication.

To celebrate our first birthday, we thought we'd look back at the top posts for 2009.

How do you evaluate a plan like Ceibal?

Submitted by Michael Trucano on Fri, 12/11/2009 - 16:53

I'd like to teach the world to code ... (used according to terms of CC license courtesy LIRNET.NET & AK Mahan)If you have had your fill of theories and promises about what the widespread diffusion of information and communication technologies (ICTs) might mean for teaching and learning practices across an entire education system and want to see what actual practice looks like, a trip to Montevideo (or better yet, one of the regions outside the Uruguayan capital) should be high on your list.

Under Plan Ceibal (earlier blog post here), Uruguay is the first country in the world to ensure that all primary school students (or at least those in public schools) have their own personal laptop.  For free.  (The program is being extended to high schools, and, under a different financial scheme, to private schools as well).  Ceibal is about more than just 'free laptops for kids', however.  There is a complementary educational television channel. Schools serve as centers for free community wi-fi, and free connectivity has been introduced in hundreds of municipal centers around the country as well.  There are free local training programs for parents and community members on how to use the equipment.  Visiting Uruguay last week, I was struck by how many references there were to 'one laptop per teacher' (and not just 'one laptop per child', which has been the rallying cry for a larger international initiative and movement). Much digital content has been created, and digital learning content is something that is expected to have a much greater prominence within Ceibal now that the technology infrastructure is largely in place.