São Paulo – Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries are among those that spend most in education worldwide. According to a study by British publishing house Pearson, disclosed on Friday (16), this spending is not turned solely to construction of schools and to administration of the educational system, but also to the implementation of the use of technology in the classroom.<\/p>\n
According to Pearson, spending of the countries of the GCC with education has grown “dramatically” over the last ten years. The United Arab Emirates, for example, put into practice in 2010 a project for “paperless classrooms”, in which the content of the disciplines is transmitted to students through digital means. The project comprises the 295,000 students of public schools in the Emirates.<\/p>\n
Qatar has an e-learning project. The Higher Education Council of Qatar forecasts that by the end of next year, each student should have a device to store the content of the disciplines and to study on. According to Pearson, spending with education in the country has doubled over the last five years, to US$ 6 billion in 2013. Saudi Arabia, the most populous country in the region, is also investing in improvement of education. According to the British publishing house, sector spending should total US$ 54 billion this year.<\/p>\n
Technology & education<\/strong><\/p>\n Not all this investment is through digital means and neither should it be, according to the “Alive in the Swamp” study. The document defines the “swamp” as an “explosion” of digital opportunities that are yet to be discovered and refined for good use in education.<\/p>\n The research was elaborated by the executive director at Pearson, Katelyn Donnely, and by the Educational Reform professor of the University of Toronto, Michael Fullan, to show the use of technology in education to improve teaching and should be inserted in a reform project in the area. But these funds alone do not replace the teacher or testing.<\/p>\n Another challenge found in development of classroom technology is the number of schools that employ it and the need for them to add digital means to traditional education.<\/p>\n “If we consider digital innovations, the field is currently characterized by either weak or undeveloped pedagogy, or strong technology and pedagogy confined to a small number of schools; that is, the best examples tend to be small–scale exceptions that are not representative of the main body of schools. Additionally, there is in general a lack of strong efficacy evidence demonstrating the impact of the digital innovations on student learning,” says the document.<\/p>\n *Translated by Mark Ament<\/strong><\/p>\n