The Development and Evolution of National Educational Technology Agencies Over Time

As part of our work advising such groups over the years, we have observed that national ICT/education agencies -- the organizations found in many countries which serve as the focal groups coordinating large scale efforts to introduce, use and support new technologies in schools -- pass through a general ‘life-cycle’ over the course of their existence, with five semi-distinct stages of development.

Each stage may bring with it a new set of functional responsibilities and mandates, different staffing (including leadership) and budgeting requirements, and entail varied levels of oversight and relationships with other groups, causing organizational structures to adapt, and be adapted, over time.

This life-cycle hypothesis has been proposed as a simple tool to help people who play critical roles in the planning for large scale national educational technology initiatives to develop an understanding of how their organizations may compare with other organizations doing similar sorts of things in other parts of the world, and how they might expect that their organizations may evolve and change over time. Such an evolution can potentially have a profound impact on a variety of key decisions that policymakers may have to make related to funding, staffing, functions and coordination with a variety of key stakeholder groups over time. There is no right or wrong answer as to whether it is 'good' or 'bad' that a particular organization finds itself at one of these five identified stages. There also appears to be no hard and fast rule about how long individual institutions may stay at a particular stage in the life cycle. Some organizations may move quickly from one stage to another, others may stay in a particular stage for many years, even (potentially) decades. Most organizations observed around the world, especially those in middle and low income countries, find themselves today somewhere between the stages of 'childhood' and 'adolescence', with a heavy focus on the technology itself (buying it, rolling it out, supporting and maintaining it) and less of a focus on trying to integrate the technology into standard or transformed teaching and learning practices. While it is worth noting that this technology focus is not necessarily bad (or good) -- judgments of this sort are presumably more useful when made relative to certain specific contexts, and not in the abstract -- it is usually true that this focus is a direct consequence of the views of policy makers about how technology can and should be used in education.

Stage 1. Starting (‘birth’)
When initially conceived, ICT/education agencies often have a narrow set of responsibilities, typically related to the roll-out of computers and/or Internet connectivity to schools. Alternatively, they may be set up to perform a specific function (e.g. research, overseeing pilot activities) for which an existing (typically governmental) structure is poorly positioned.

Some related key considerations for policy makers to consider during the first stage of life of a national ICT/education agency may include:

• What sort of key enabling legislation or policy may need to be enacted to given a national ICT/education agency its mandate – and to communicate this mandate with a larger community of stakeholder organizations active in the sector?
• How should such an organization be funded – and staffed?
• Why isn't this being done within an existing institution – is it, for example, to be able to take greater risks, have greater freedom of action, enable connections to key stakeholder groups, access different funding sources, or is this more a matter of bureaucratic convenience?

Stage 2. Expanding (‘childhood’)
As an agency gets better at its work, and as its activities roll out at greater scale, it may increase both its budget and staff. It still does what it did before – it just does more of it.

Some related key considerations for policy makers to consider during this third stage of life of a national ICT/education agency may include:

• How can the processes and procedures introduced during the early activities of the agency be formalized, so that the institution can become increasingly cost-effective and impactful as it grows?
• How can an agency find – and retain – key personnel once the start-up phase of the institution has largely ended?

Stage 3. Evolving (‘adolescence’)
Over time, an ICT/education agency often assumes additional responsibilities beyond its original mandate.  This occurs because its ‘success’ in achieving its original mandate naturally surfaces new needs (e.g. once all schools have computers, some group needs to make sure that there is educational content to run on them), because new opportunities arise and/or because existing responsibilities are absorbed into formal government programs and structures and, as a functioning existing institution, it is considered well placed to pursue other objectives.

Some related key considerations for policy makers to consider during this third stage of life of a national ICT/education agency may include:

• As an agency enters a new phase of its life, might new leadership be necessary to help direct its evolution?
• If an organization is outside of government, does it make sense to bring many of its key responsibilities and functions within government, now that an initial period of trial and error has largely ended? Conversely: If a program is housed within government, does it make sense that it be ‘spun out’ to another institution – or to be constituted as its own separate institution?
• If initial special funding sources and mechanisms have run out, how should such an agency be funded going forward?

Stage 4. Sustaining (‘adulthood’ and ‘middle age’)
Where an ICT/education agency becomes ‘embedded’ into the system and is seen as ‘core’ to the delivery of certain essential activities or services over time, with a (reasonably) secure medium- to long-term budget horizon, much of its activities and processes can become more bureaucratized and serve largely to sustain existing programs. Given the pace of technological change, it will continue to assume new responsibilities and mandates, but its structure and defining characteristics remain largely un-changed. KERIS in Korea is a very prominent example of an institution that is seen to have ‘grown up’ in this way; the Omar Dengo Foundation in Costa Rica is another.

Some related key considerations for policy makers to consider during this fourth stage of life of a national ICT/education agency may include:

• How can a national ICT/education agency remain a locus for innovation and experimentation, given that it is responsibility for a rather set of on-going, legacy activities?
• How can a national ICT/education agency develop deeper links with key stakeholder groups – and incubate new initiatives and processes that might one day be spun-out as separate programs or organizations on their own?
• To what extent can – or should – a national ICT/education agency play a more proactive role in helping to inform and influence policy decisions related to ICT use in education across the country?

Stage 5. Ending (‘retirement’)
Where the goals of an ICT/education agency have been thought to have been met, and/or where other organizations are thought to be able to more effectively and efficiently absorb an agency’s responsibilities, it may be disbanded or shut down. Becta in the UK and EdNA in Australia are perhaps the two best known global examples of this occurring. Whether this is the result of a conscious process (‘mission accomplished’), the ‘failure’ of an agency to accomplish its mandate, or simply changing circumstances, the end result is the same.

Some related key considerations for policy makers to consider may include:

• What are the agency’s key assets, and how can they live on past the closing of a national ICT/education agency?
• What institutions can assume the key roles previously performed by a national ICT/education agency that are still deemed important to ensure that similar (or better) levels of impact are achieved?
• What are the key messages that the government wishes to convey related to the closing of the agency?

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This is one in an occasional series of posts excerpting draft analytical work related to national ICT/education agencies that will be published by the World Bank later this year. Please do let us know where we are missing something important -- or where we may have gotten something wrong! The chart that is used to illustrated the life cycle of national ICT/education agencies is decidedly a work-in-progress. While we think it is a potentially useful visual aid, we are not yet convinced that it helps tell the type of story that may be most useful to policymakers. Any related feedback you might have would be well heard on our end.

Note: The image used at the top of this blog post of a vintage bicycle from 1869 housed in the Département des Cycles au Musée d'Art et d'Industrie de Saint-Étienne ("a different sort of life cycle") comes from Wikipedian Hélène Rival via Wikimedia Commons and is used according to the terms of its Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.