THE FUTURE OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY IN UK SCHOOLS

The UK has a higher ratio of computers per schoolchild than
almost any other country, including the US. Yet despite
this lead and the fact that information technology has been
on the educational agenda for almost 30 years, it is not clear that
IT has made a significant impact on educational standards. The
reason is not that IT is irrelevant to education – it has the potential
to enhance and even transform elements of teaching. Rather,
it is that many IT initiatives in schools have focused on just one
area, often the provision of hardware, at the expense of addressing
more widely how computers can be fully integrated into education.
With the Internet bringing new possibilities as computers
become not just a tool for processing information but a vehicle
for communication and exploration over networks, the UK is at
a crossroads. It needs clearer educational objectives for IT, and
a cohesive approach to enable them to be achieved.
The purpose of this report is to provide a review of the
opportunities, challenges, costs and benefits of incorporating IT
more fully into the educational system, and to give policymakers
a basis for decisions.