Finland lagging behind in ICT use in the schools (19.04.2013)

A report on the ICT use in schools ordered by the European Commission was published on the 18th of April. The report, which compares ICT use in education in 31 countries, showed that while the use of ICT is high in both Sweden and Estonia, Finland is lagging behind. In Sweden there are the most computers with 59 computers to a 100 students, in Estonia there are 31 to a hundred, while Finland scored below the EU average of 21 with a score of 20.

The report suggests a number of actions to boost ICT use at schools, like for instance strengthening public action at institutional, local, regional, national and European levels, as well as building capacity for ICT pedagogical expertise at school level.

The report showed that teachers want and need more training, not only technical but pedagogical training as well. The report thus recommends encouraging increased training provided by school staff and others to teachers of all disciplines, including subject-specific training on learning applications.

Furthermore, the researchers suggest investigating more in detail why digital learning resources are not used more, and ways to improve the situation, by increasing public/private partnerships with publishers, developing teachers’ online communities for content creation and open content products, etc.

The report can be read in its entirety here. A summary in Finnish can be read here.