To avoid widening the digital divide, Australian students need a digital equity guarantee.
Clear steps are required to harness the opportunities that educational technology and AI offer in Australian classrooms and prevent a growing digital divide that is further entrenching inequality for students experiencing disadvantage, according to a new report.
Securing Digital Equity in Australian Education, released today by the Australian Network for Quality Digital Education, calls for policymakers to establish a Digital Equity Learning Guarantee to address data and design inequities in digital tools and ensure all Australian students can access and benefit from the highest quality digitally enabled teaching and learning resources (‘edtech’).
Authored by Network Chair, University of Technology Sydney (UTS) Professor Leslie Loble AM and Director of Edtech and Education Policy Dr Kelly Stephens, the paper explores digital equity across access, data, design and effective use, considering case studies of Australian schools with a range of student socioeconomic backgrounds.
Professor Loble – who is former chair of the Australian Education Ministerial Council’s Schooling Policy Group and former Deputy Secretary in the NSW Department of Education – said the research underscored the urgent need to address equity across all four dimensions for edtech to realise its potential to help tackle ongoing educational disadvantage in Australia, while mitigating the risks of it further amplifying the hardships facing some students.
“Edtech has significant potential to bridge the learning divide, but it is not a silver bullet for education. Digital tools are only as good as their design and their use – and in Australia we can already see the warning signs of these tools amplifying disadvantage across all fronts,” said Professor Loble.
“The risks of overuse and misuse of edtech and AI are real and increasingly documented, but less attention is paid to the significant risk of underuse and missed opportunities. “
While there are thousands of assistive technology tools available for our schools, there is a huge gap between the education potential this represents and the reality of students who do not have ready access to appropriate devices and services.
“These missed opportunities will likely be borne by those who already miss out. We know that over one-fifth of students in schools where disadvantage is common lack digital resources, compared with only two per cent in schools where students come from wealthier backgrounds.”
The report recommends establishing a Digital Equity Learning Guarantee for all Australian students that will:
- Provide free or low-cost access to quality digital devices and connectivity to support disadvantaged students’ learning, and additional resources to lift digital skills and AI literacy.
- Expand the effective use of digital teaching and learning tools, especially to improve outcomes for disadvantaged and special needs students, through professional learning opportunities and preservice teacher education; and research into what works best in using edtech learning applications, including work with disadvantaged schools to test and showcase effective integration.
- Set equity and inclusion as core design expectations of edtech used in Australian schools through standards, procurement processes and co-investment by government and industry to develop and scale equity-focused design.
- Ensure the highest level privacy and safety protections for children and students in the design and use of educational technologies.
“Improving digital access, including digital literacy for teachers and school resourcing, is the bedrock of digital inclusion in education and should be a priority for policymakers. But how we approach issues of data, design, and use are equally critical,” Professor Loble said.
“It is important that data equity prioritises safety, but it must push well beyond that – ensuring fairness in design to remove the risk that these technologies focus on a mythical average learner at the expense of the true range of student learning needs and backgrounds.”
The report incorporates snapshots from different schools around Australia that are using edtech in innovative ways to improve learning experiences and outcomes, particularly for students in disadvantaged contexts.
Professor Loble said these examples offer a blueprint for the effective design and use of digital tools to address disadvantage.
“We have seen schools using digital platforms in intentional, creative and sustained ways to support improved learning experiences for students experiencing disadvantage. For example, the Living First Language Platform and Indigital offer cases of edtech initiatives that profoundly address Aboriginal community priorities and honour principles of data sovereignty,” she said.
“By addressing all dimensions of edtech equity – through a Digital Equity Learning Guarantee for all Australian students – we can not only mitigate the risks but harness edtech’s potential to finally bridge the digital divide and improve learning outcomes for students who will most benefit from the opportunities these digital tools present.”
John Bush, Head of Young People at the Paul Ramsay Foundation, said: We know that many Australian children don’t have what they need to thrive at school, including access to digital resources.
While there’s an opportunity for AI-based edtech to be a bridge to greater digital inclusion and improve learning outcomes, there is also a real risk that AI will exacerbate that digital divide. This research highlights the urgent need to act swiftly to embed digital inclusion and equity in the design and use of all AI-based edtech.”
Amy Persson, Interim Pro Vice-Chancellor (Social Justice and Inclusion) at the University of Technology Sydney, said: “The education sector has made great strides in identifying and starting to address the traditional barriers to educational attainment. There is urgency now to ensure digital access and learning experiences meet our national education priorities and social justice principles of equity, participation, self-determination, and privacy.
“We know that existing inequalities in our society can be replicated and magnified in the adoption of digital tools. But we are also excited for their potential to uplift learning outcomes. We must ensure these benefits are delivered to the students who need it the most, and disrupt cycles of disadvantage rather than deepen them.”
The Network brings together leaders from across education, industry, social purpose and philanthropic organisations, government and research, in the common purpose of ensuring that all Australian students benefit from the best educational technology (edtech), and the benefits of edtech are leveraged to tackle the persistent learning divide.
The Network is being convened with inaugural funding from the Paul Ramsay Foundation and sponsored by Amy Persson, Interim Pro Vice-Chancellor (Social Justice and Inclusion) at the University of Technology Sydney.
