Reposting this here from Panoply Digital. A few caveats at the onset here. This reads a bit more like an academic piece which it largely is. It is drawn from something larger I wrote a bit ago for another paper. It might also read like an attack on the SDGs, which is not my point. The point here is that the SDGs have generated some incredible results and I sincerely support them, but we must be mindful of what is being mobilised in our pursuit of them. My focus is education and I suggest that the provisions of the SDGs related specifically to that field suggest particular scaled interventions (or at least make those approaches particularly attractive). Scale exacts pressure on particular types of education.
Ultimately, greater access to and retention through education is a great thing and I would struggle to suggest otherwise. But we must be a bit/mildly skeptical of at scale solutions to fairly stubborn nuanced educational problems. The scale part drives this skepticism and the use of technology (hence my repeated references to digital education) compounds this.
Tags: Digital Education • Higher Education, • ICT4D • Mobile Learning • Research • SDGs