Professor Rose Luckin, EDUCATE Director, welcomes Education Secretary’s plans for EdTech

Professor Rose Luckin, the director of EDUCATE, has welcomed an announcement today by Damian Hinds, the Education Secretary, calling for an ‘EdTech revolution’ in UK schools.

The Secretary of State set out his vision for the use of technology in education and called on the sector to meet five key challenges that would improve teaching and learning, and ease teacher workload.

Professor Luckin, who is professor of Learner Centred Design at the UCL Knowledge Lab, said: “It is great to see Mr Hinds recognising the value of technology in education.

“We know that well-designed and effectively-deployed technology has a positive impact on teaching and learning. We now need the EdTech sector to work with educators and researchers to develop the evidence-informed technology and practice to transform our education system to benefit all learners.”

Outling his vision to the World Education Forum, Mr Hinds said that some schools had already embraced EdTech, bringing education to life with the use of robots and virtual reality, while giving teachers more time to spend with pupils rather than on administrative tasks.

However, he said, only a minority was engaged with technology and he called on industry – both EdTech developers in the UK and the global giants such as Microsoft and Apple – to help tackle five key issues: cutting teacher workload, developing innovative teaching methods, training teachers, making assessment more effective, and promoting lifelong learning.

Mr Hinds said: “Schools, colleges and universities have the power to choose the tech tools which are best for them and their budgets. But they cannot do this alone. It’s only by forging a strong partnership between government, technology innovators and the education sector that there will be sustainable, focused solutions which will ultimately support and inspire the learners of today and tomorrow.”

He urged EdTech developers to get more involved in schools and to work on providing the evidence of the impact they have in the classroom. The Department for Education will be working with, amongst others, the British Educational Suppliers Association, one of EDUCATE’s partners, to promote EdTech in schools, colleges and universities.

Professor Luckin added: “Since its launch last year, the EDUCATE programme has worked more than 100 entrepreneurs, businesses and start-ups to help bring about exactly the revolution of which the Secretary of State speaks. “We look forward to sharing our expertise and experience to help make this vision a reality for millions of children and students.”

More information about Damian Hinds’ speech can be found here, and an article written by the Secretary of State is here.