EDUCATION
Teachers and students are still being let down by poor technology
Richard Wells, Head of Sales for Office Printing at Epson explores why the education sector is still lacking decent hardware and IT funding.
Education is the basic building block of civilization. It’s the single best investment countries can make to build prosperous, healthy and equitable societies. Yet the sector still isn’t doing enough to provide teachers and students with the technology they’re asking for. It’s a headline that gets repeated again and again. Before the pandemic, Epson found that many children were destined to sit in the ‘cheap seats’ in a classroom. To put it another way, they had a poor view of teaching materials being shared on flat panel screens in classrooms, hampering their education 1 . Fast forward three years, and new research from Epson continues to paint a challenging picture. According to educational IT managers and teaching staff across 33 countries throughout Europe the Middle East and Africa, even basics like access to a printer are limited. Over nine in 10 (93%) of education workers questioned said it’s essential that teachers have access to one. Yet fewer than half (47%) of teachers use printers in the classroom. Many are driven to using their own with 76% admitting they have a printer at home they use for teaching needs. This reflects a long history of under-investment in technology throughout the sector, which can be seen in government polices across the region. For example, the UK has experienced a decade of inaction, which left the sector unprepared for remote lessons in the pandemic, according to
Richard Wells head of sales for office prining
University College London 2 . More widely across the regions studied,
spending on education seems to fall short. It stands at about 4.8% of GDP in the EU and 3.8% in the Middle East and North Africa. Both sit below North American levels of investment 3 . Pressure is mounting, but cost and training hold schools back It’s therefore not surprising that pressure is mounting for better technology provision in schools. Nearly three quarters of respondents (73%) say students expect higher levels of technology use now compared to before, and the majority of educators (71%) are looking at greater ways to
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