Publication: Building and Sustaining National ICT Education Agencies: Lessons from England (Becta)
Loading...
Published
2016
ISSN
Date
2017-02-17
Author(s)
Editor(s)
Abstract
The British educational communications and technology agency (Becta) was established in 1998 and finally closed in 2011. The government in England set out Becta’s priorities in annual remit letters, and the agency’s changing role is traced through the content of these letters. Becta primarily addressed school-based and technical and vocational education and it acted as the key agency in taking forward England’s e-learning strategy, harnessing technology. In Becta’s lifetime, technology changed dramatically, and the agency played an important role in building the capacity of schools and colleges to support their work and the learning of students through technology. Becta played an important role in conducting research and gathering evidence in use of technology for learning and in developing education leadership and teacher capacity to use technology across the school curriculum. While every national context is different, some of the experience associated with Becta’s existence may provide a starting point for reflection on the development of similarly focused information and communication technology (ICT) in education agencies.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“Dykes, Gavin. 2016. Building and Sustaining National ICT Education Agencies: Lessons from England (Becta). World Bank Education, Technology &
Innovation: SABER-ICT Technical Paper Series,no. 6;. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/26090 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
Digital Object Identifier
Associated URLs
Associated content
Other publications in this report series
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Related items
Showing items related by metadata.
Publication Building and Sustaining National ICT Education Agencies(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2016)National ICT/education agencies (and their functional equivalents) play important roles in the implementation and oversight of large scale initiatives related to the use of information and communication technologies in education in many countries. That said, little is known at a global level about the way these organizations operate, how they are structured, and how they typically evolve over time. Through an examination of lessons from the development and history of a set of representative ICT/education agencies in East Asia, and, to better understand East Asian experience, other countries around the work, this paper seeks to identify common challenges and issues and potential relevance to leaders of such institutions.Publication Building and Sustaining National Educational Technology Agencies(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2017)National educational technology agencies (‘ICT/education agencies’, and their functional equivalents) play important roles in the implementation and oversight of large scale initiatives related to the use of information and communication technologies in education in many countries. That said, little is known at a global level about the way these organizations operate, how they are structured, and how they typically evolve over time. By documenting emerging lessons from the histories of various national educational technology agencies and their functional equivalents, which are typically responsible for similar roles but which can differ radically in form by country and over time, it is hoped that this publication can help inform perspectives of decision makers considering how to create and support such an institution, the forms it might take, what roles it might take on, and how these forms and roles might be expected to evolve over time. Case studies from Korea (KERIS), Malaysia (Smart Schools), England (Becta), Chile (Enlaces), Armenia (NaCET), Uruguay (Plan Ceibal); Indonesia (PUSTEKKOM), Costa Rica (Omar Dengo Foundation), Thailand (Schoolnet Thailand), Australia (EdNA) and the Philippines are included, as well as a discussion of general lessons from international experiences, and pointers to other notable institutions around the world.Publication Building and Sustaining National ICT Education Agencies(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2016)This case study explores the establishment and changing role of Pustekkom, the Centre for Information and Communication Technology (ICT) for Education, which is part of the Ministry of Education and Culture in Indonesia. Originally established a content development house, with a focus on audio and radio and video or film or television content, Pustekkom is currently grappling with a requirement to change its role, given a new mandate that it has been given to plan and provide ICT infrastructure, services, professional development, and resources to schools. Thus, this case study explores the challenges facing Pustekkom, as well as how it is responding to a common challenge facing education systems around the world: how do well established systems and organizations that have operated on a relatively stable set of assumptions for many years cope with the institutional transformation that is being forced on them as growing ICT penetration within societies challenges traditional ways of operating and disrupts entrenched power structures in education? This exploration of a national ICT in education agency with a transforming mandate yields some key lessons of potential relevance globally.Publication Building and Sustaining National ICT Education Agencies(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2016)Information and communications technologies (ICTs) are developing fast and triggering fundamental changes in education system. This case study focuses on institution building, which can manage such a fundamental transition in education system on a national scale. Following a short introduction, a theoretical framework is discussed. This case study attempts to investigate the birth and growth of Korea Education and Research Information Service (KERIS) and explores the role of KERIS in planning and implementing one quite prominent strategic initiative to introduce innovative practices within the Korean education system - the cyber home learning system (CHLS). The objective of this case study is to find out key factors that the government needs to consider for successful institution building and those that determines the accomplishments of the missions assigned to KERIS. Using the CHLS policy case, in addition, the authors explore how KERIS implemented the CHLS policy in cooperation with regional offices of education, which are autonomous and in charge of education policy in each region in Korea. This case study will provide rich experiences that policy makers can refer to when they plan to build a similar institution or restructure an existing one.Publication Building and Sustaining National ICT Education Agencies(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2016)The National Center for Education Technology (NaCET) has for nearly ten years served as the primary support for education technology in Armenian schools. NaCET manages the Armenian Schools Internet Network (ASIN), plus school information management, content development and dissemination, training in information technology, and development and dissemination of education content. NaCET was founded to meet urgent needs for technical capacity and contract management with the Ministry of Education and Science (MoES). In meeting these needs, NaCET has overseen the extension of internet connectivity to more than 99 percent of schools as of 2013. This milestone is accompanied by new pressures - the need to begin the process of upgrading hardware - and by a new opportunity for broader assessment of the role of education technology in schools.
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
Publication Malaria and Growth(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2000-03)The authors explore the two-sided link between malaria morbidity and Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita growth. Climate significantly affects cross-country differences in malaria morbidity. Tropical location is not destiny, however: greater access to rural health care and greater income equality are associated with lower malaria morbidity. But the interpretation of this link is ambiguous: does greater income inequality allow for improved anti-malaria efforts, or does malaria itself increase income inequality? Allowing for two-sided causation, the authors find a significant negative causal effect running from malaria morbidity to the growth rate of GDP per capita. In about a quarter of their sample countries, malaria is estimated to reduce GDP per capita growth by at least 0.25 percentage point a year.Publication Decarbonizing Urban Transport for Development(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-09-20)The path to low-carbon urban transport looks fundamentally different in developed and developing countries. Most cities in developing countries have not yet developed their land use and transportation infrastructure around cars, leaving a window of opportunity to chart a new path to low-carbon, efficient and inclusive urban transport. While developed countries may focus on retrofitting existing fleets (e.g., through electrification), developing countries can build their transport systems with a low-carbon approach at the core, allowing for more inclusive and climate-friendly growth in the future. With this approach, most of the changes that make urban transport greener also make cities more livable. Encouraging dense, compact, and mixed-use development (while limiting sprawl) and building effective public transport systems and safe pedestrian routes all reduce traffic and local pollution while increasing citizens’ ability to access jobs, health services and education. This report provides a framework that can help cities leverage these synergies and create transport systems that will support social and economic development outcomes while also reducing emissions.Publication Infrastructure and Structural Change in Africa(Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the World Bank, 2024-03-08)Past investments in electricity, Internet, and road infrastructure, in isolation and bundled, have contributed to structural transformation and economic development in Africa. Using new data on the expansion of the road, electricity, and Internet networks over the past two decades, the paper shows that having access to both paved roads and electricity has led to a significant reallocation of labor from agricultural to both manufacturing and services. Adding access to fast Internet has had a major impact on structural change, with an even larger impact on reallocating labor away from agriculture. The paper then uses a spatial general-equilibrium model to quantify the impacts of future regional transport investments, bundled with electricity and Internet investments, on economic development in countries in the Horn of Africa and Lake Chad region.Publication Digital Africa(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-03-13)All African countries need better and more jobs for their growing populations. "Digital Africa: Technological Transformation for Jobs" shows that broader use of productivity-enhancing, digital technologies by enterprises and households is imperative to generate such jobs, including for lower-skilled people. At the same time, it can support not only countries’ short-term objective of postpandemic economic recovery but also their vision of economic transformation with more inclusive growth. These outcomes are not automatic, however. Mobile internet availability has increased throughout the continent in recent years, but Africa’s uptake gap is the highest in the world. Areas with at least 3G mobile internet service now cover 84 percent of Africa’s population, but only 22 percent uses such services. And the average African business lags in the use of smartphones and computers as well as more sophisticated digital technologies that catalyze further productivity gains. Two issues explain the usage gap: affordability of these new technologies and willingness to use them. For the 40 percent of Africans below the extreme poverty line, mobile data plans alone would cost one-third of their incomes—in addition to the price of access devices, apps, and electricity. Data plans for small- and medium-size businesses are also more expensive than in other regions. Moreover, shortcomings in the quality of internet services—and in the supply of attractive, skills-appropriate apps that promote entrepreneurship and raise earnings—dampen people’s willingness to use them. For those countries already using these technologies, the development payoffs are significant. New empirical studies for this report add to the rapidly growing evidence that mobile internet availability directly raises enterprise productivity, increases jobs, and reduces poverty throughout Africa. To realize these and other benefits more widely, Africa’s countries must implement complementary and mutually reinforcing policies to strengthen both consumers’ ability to pay and willingness to use digital technologies. These interventions must prioritize productive use to generate large numbers of inclusive jobs in a region poised to benefit from a massive, youthful workforce—one projected to become the world’s largest by the end of this century.Publication Building and Sustaining National ICT/Education Agencies(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2016)Beginning in 1996, the Department of Education (DepEd) started to implement the first large scale ICT/education initiative in the Philippines. This effort was later strengthened and expanded to become the DepEd Computerization Program and DepEd Internet Connectivity Program (DCP/DICP). This was a huge undertaking for DepEd, both to oversee and to implement. Fortunately, many groups were willing to help – other government agencies, international and non-government organizations, private sector, local government units and higher education institutions. That said, coordinating the large scale implementation of ICT/education initiatives, as well as related donations and support from partners and key stakeholder groups, made it difficult to share information and expertise, coordinate public-private partnerships, and replicate and scale up successful projects. Many countries have created a distinct agency to coordinate and implement ICT/education. In the early stages of the introduction of ICTs in education in the Philippines, the government largely resisted this idea, although a number of related oversight and implementation models were proposed. Absent such an organization and/or related formal institutional structure education policymakers, stakeholders and practitioner groups explored other options.