The digital transformation of the 21st century: does the school exist or does it resist?

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) places Spain in a leadership position in public services and digital government. Madrid and Barcelona are among the European cities in which the most startups Are crated. The Spanish educational technology industry, edtech (acronym for the words education and technology in English), registers a spectacular growth thanks to our digital innovative capacity and the competitive advantage provided by Spanish, the mother tongue of almost 600 million people, and the second with the most global use on the internet.

If all the above were insufficient to reveal the digital transformation we live -and, even more, the one that lies ahead and the impact it will have on education-, it would be enough to mention the recovery and resilience mechanism. Approved by the European Parliament on February 11, its objective is to face the effects of the pandemic.

It focuses, in addition to the ecological transition, in the digital transformation, a chapter that will receive at least 20% of the 672,500 million euros committed. Spain, along with Italy, will be one of the main beneficiaries.

Technological and digital transformation can contribute decisively to the achievement of two strategic objectives. On the one hand, make possible a exit from the crisis generated by the pandemic in less time and in better condition.

On the other, improve the productivity and competitiveness of our economy, indicators that in our country have stagnated in recent years, as reported by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Bank of Spain.

It is a stagnation whose origin lies, among other reasons, in the growth of employment in sectors that require weak skills, in a sector of the population with low educational levels -especially young people who leave school prematurely- and, also , in the stubborn low investment in R&D and in other strategic intangible assets.

What is the reaction of the school – that is, non-university formal education – to this unimaginable, until recently, digital transformation? Well, the school is at a crossroads, as in the title of a work by Professor Fernández Enguita.

An unprecedented crossroads in which strong resistance to abandoning topics and routines is revealed. For instance, entrust the improvement of education to simple quantitative aspects, such as the increase in teachers or repeated debates about the ratios of students per classroom. And forget, thus, that the commitment to quality and equity should not be limited to arithmetic in that small space, and it should be done on the huge possibilities for innovation and improvement that the educational center has.

It is time to build the model for the future: complex and inspired by principles of quality, equity and inclusion, that must combine the essential presence together with the great window of opportunities that distance education offers, for everyone equally, through hybrid or combined systems.

We must not return to the massive provision of personal computers for students who, in many cases, already have them.

Investments must take into account the results and evaluations of such programs that have been carried out in numerous countries, since the founder of the Media Lab of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Nicholas Negroponte, in the early nineties launched the initiative One laptop for each student.

Studies that, in summary, have shown that this merely instrumental digitization provides poor educational results if it is not accompanied, among others, by profound methodological changes, systematic monitoring and evaluation processes and a trained teaching staff truly committed to this digital and educational transformation.

If the pandemic has had global reach and consequences, ecological and educational measures must also have that dimension. We don’t get out of this crisis well if we don’t get out together. And to this the greater support for science, research and innovation will contribute decisively and positively, as well as identifying, building and sharing global responses, avoiding irrelevant identity distractions. Cooperation and multilateralism strengthen its validity and imperative need.

Faced with the important challenge we face, from the Organization of Ibero-American States (OEI) we have formulated a great educational program of international cooperation, whose objective is the digital educational transformation.

Different actors collaborate in this program, such as governments, multilateral development banks, cooperation agencies and universities. Its implementation is scheduled in the near future in a dozen countries in our region.

The Government of Spain recently presented the report Spain 2050 in which, in its second challenge entitled Conquer the educational vanguard, the achievements made during the last decades are recognized. But also the existing deficiencies that may weigh down the future of the country are made explicit and their citizenship.

This document states that, without major reforms, until 2050 3.4 million students could repeat a year and 2.2 million young people could drop out of school prematurely. Spain would be surpassed in terms of learning and educational quality by many countries of the European Union, among others Portugal, Hungary and Latvia, which would mean a serious loss of competitiveness and international influence.

We cannot miss the unique opportunity offered by the digital transformation that is already a reality with a predictable unstoppable development. In this case, the Latin motto that reads he who suffers conquers –who resists wins, in Spanish-: a school that limits itself to exist or to resist it is very possible that in the new current and future context it will become irrelevant and, therefore, dispensable compared to other educational options.

*** Mariano Jabonero is the secretary general of the Organization of Ibero-American States (OEI).

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