Editorial | Tech-in-schools review

La Sonja Harrison’s re-ignition of a discussion on the effects of digital devices on children’s development again highlights the need for a serious analysis of the issue, and the need for guidelines on their availability and use in the island’s classrooms.

This question should be part of a broader review of the deployment of technology in education, including policies on integrating artificial intelligence (AI) into teaching and learning processes while maintaining the integrity of assessments used to measure educational outcomes.

Mark Malabver, Ms Harrison’s predecessor as president of the Jamaica Teachers’ Association (JTA), recently called for the education ministry to initiate such a policy discussion on AI in response to the Caribbean Examinations Council’s (CXC) decision to phase out school-based assessments in regional exams because it could not guarantee that students, rather than AI agents, produced the papers.

In her speech to the Rotary Club of Mandeville last week, Ms Harrison focused more narrowly on how unregulated access to digital devices hampered the cognitive and motor development of younger children and called for Scandinavian-style limits on their use in schools.

“I am not saying that we shouldn’t use the technology, but we have to restrict it at a certain level - our babies, our early childhood children,” Harrison said. “... So I have a call for a national screen-time policy.”

She added: “We have to establish one to say that the children must be cut off at a certain age, and when they are older, when their bodies and mental capacity are in place, then we can introduce the use of the technology.”

NOT AN OUTLIER

While she may not have clearly articulated her concerns or been specific in her policy prescriptions, Ms Harrison is not an outlier on this issue. Other Jamaican educators, citing experiences from other countries, have, in the past, expressed their own anxieties over how access to instruments like smartphones, tablets, and other digital devices was affecting the development, socialisation, and education of the island’s children.

They often point to Nordic states like Finland, Sweden, and Denmark as examples of how countries have responded to these fears.

While they have not abandoned digital technology in education, Sweden and Denmark have, especially for younger children, returned to an emphasis on printed books, quiet reading periods, and practising penmanship.

Sweden and Denmark have placed new emphasis, especially for younger children, on printed books, quiet reading and practising handwriting.

“The Swedish Government’s school policy aims to get back to basics and re-establish a strong knowledge-based school system with the focus of early grades being on basic skills such as reading, writing, and arithmetic,” a Swedish government statement said earlier this year. “Digital learning aids should only be introduced in teaching at an age when they encourage, rather than hinder, pupils’ learning.”

Most Nordic countries, including Finland by law, have severe restrictions on access to mobile phones in schools. In Western Europe, too, these concerns have arisen. Holland, for instance, significantly restricts students’ access to their personal mobile phones during school time.

Ms Harrison also referenced a campaign launched by the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), promoting hands-on teaching and learning and stronger guardrails for the use of digital devices and AI technology in education.

AT A CROSSROADS

In a speech in May, the AFT’s president, Randi Weingarten, warned that the US was “at a crossroads that will define the future of work and society”.

“Without proper oversight and strong guardrails, there will be real dangers to our safety, privacy, climate, and the very fabric of society.”

Ms Weingarten made clear that she was “not calling for a total ban on AI or a Chromebook bonfire,” but for “getting the balance right to harness the benefits of technology while mitigating the harms”.

That must be Jamaica’s mission: getting the balance right between access to existing and emerging technologies to help improve educational outcomes and drive development. In that regard, Jamaica must not lock itself into any single source of inspiration for the use of digital and AI technologies. It must borrow and adapt workable and relevant systems from all sources, which means also looking at, and analysing, developments in Asia.

While some of the fears of Northern Europe have been raised in powerful Asian economies, their responses have largely been to find other solutions to those concerns rather than retreat. So China intends to introduce AI education in all primary and secondary schools by 2030 while South Korea expects to fully roll out AI-powered textbooks by 2028.