Some learning deficits may have resulted from the coronavirus pandemic or reflect a growing number of immigrant students who don’t speak Swedish as their first language, but an overuse of screens during school lessons may cause youngsters to fall behind in core subjects, education experts say.
“There’s clear scientific evidence that digital tools impair rather than enhance student learning,” Sweden’s Karolinska Institute said last month on the country’s national digitalisation strategy in education.
Handwriting and printed books are of renewed focus in Swedish schools.Credit: AP
“We believe the focus should return to acquiring knowledge through printed textbooks and teacher expertise, rather than acquiring knowledge primarily from freely available digital sources that have not been vetted for accuracy,” said the institute, a highly respected medical school focused on research.
The rapid adoption of digital learning tools also has drawn concern from the United Nations’ education and culture agency.
In a report published last month, UNESCO issued an “urgent call for appropriate use of technology in education”.
The report urges countries to speed up internet connections at schools, but at the same time warns that technology in education should be implemented in a way so that it never replaces in-person, teacher-led instruction and supports the shared objective of quality education for all.
In the Swedish capital, Stockholm, nine-year-old Liveon Palmer, a third grader at Djurgardsskolan elementary school, expressed his approval of spending more school hours offline.
“I like writing more in school, like on paper, because it just feels better,” he said.
His teacher, Catarina Branelius, said she was selective about asking students to use tablets during her lessons even before the national-level scrutiny.
“I use tablets in math and we are doing some apps, but I don’t use tablets for writing text,” Branelius said. Students under age 10 “need time and practice and exercise in handwriting … before you introduce them to writing on a tablet.”
Criticising the effects of technology is “a popular move with conservative politicians,” Neil Selwyn, a professor of education at Monash University in Melbourne, said. “It’s a neat way of saying or signalling a commitment to traditional values.
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“The Swedish government does have a valid point when saying that there is no evidence for technology improving learning, but I think that’s because there is no straightforward evidence of what works with technology.
“Technology is just one part of a really complex network of factors in education.”