More devices, insufficient skills: Digital literacy gap adds to educational inequity in Germany

Source: ICILS (2018 Report), p. 312, Figure 10.1., slightly modified

Source: ICILS (2018 Report), p. 314, Figure 10.2., slightly modified

1 Infrastructure

Investments in future-proof digital education infrastructure in schools are urgently needed. But they cannot be built on an ad hoc basis, even with heavily funded programs.

In terms of access to hardware, software and the internet, school closures during the pandemic have highlighted existing problems: This was true both for the (non-)existence of IT infrastructure in students' homes and even more concretely in terms of education technology (e.g., laptops or tablets with keyboards instead of smartphones with small displays). Teachers surveyed as part of the German School Barometer Special on the Corona Crisis said the lack of digital equipment for students was the biggest challenge during the pandemic-related school closures in spring 2020. Differences in access to IT equipment and the internet meant that not all students could be reached digitally at home. The experience of spring 2020 revealed that not all children and young people in Germany have the technology at home to participate in digital learning.

This realization was reflected in education policy in the adoption of Corona Aid II: Immediate Program for Remote Devices (“Corona-Hilfe II: Sofortprogramm Endgeräte“). Thus, as part of the School Digital Pact (“DigitalPakt Schule”) in July 2020, an additional 500 million euros were made available for students who could not access a mobile device at home. In terms of the immediate applicability of these funds for supporting schools locally, however, desire and reality are currently still quite far apart. The potential of mobile devices (e.g., tablets) from the perspective of education theory and didactics lies in combining school and non-school learning spaces and supporting individualized learning settings.

2 Content

No less important than infrastructure are teaching and learning materials – ideally license-free – that enable individualized learning. However, there is still a lack of didactic approaches on how to compensate for and reduce socially related inequalities in digital skills.

There have been various activities and initiatives in Germany in recent years regarding access to meaningful, high-quality and culturally relevant content. As digital media offers access not only to entertainment but also to educational content, providing appropriate content for all children and young people appears to be a key challenge. This includes activities related to the development and provision of digital educational media, for example in the form of digital textbooks or educational media libraries at the state or federal level (e.g. mundo.schule).

Open Educational Resources (OER), i.e., teaching and learning materials that are made available free of charge or under a free license, are of particular importance. School closures in spring 2020 made it particularly apparent that access to digitized learning content is a  challenge in German. The German School Barometer Special shows that the second biggest issue related to the school closures was the creation and provision of appropriate digital teaching content. This is particularly the case in providing differentiated materials in order to make learning processes available to all students access and support them according to their needs. Education policymakers also recognized that access to digital content is highly a significant factor. Thus, in May 2020, the Corona Aid I: Support for Content package was made available for the duration of school closures.

Education professionals repeatedly emphasize the high potential of digital media to individualize learning so all students can be supported in the best possible way. However, concrete didactic approaches to reduce social inequalities in digital competency have not yet been developed.

3 Processing

Opportunities for access and participation depend not least on suitable school and learning platforms, such as those developed in many German states during the pandemic. These not only open up opportunities for sharing digital content among teachers and between teachers and students, but they also allow for new forms of parental involvement.

In terms of access to the creation, dissemination and sharing of digital content, there are a number of digital learning and work platforms or learning management systems in Germany that have gained importance in schools in recent years – despite various hurdles and failures. Such digital platforms offer the possibility – for teachers as well as students – to make materials and content available, to exchange them with each other, and in some cases to create them together. Several German states now offer their schools digital platforms (e.g., Bavaria: Mebis; Hamburg: eduPort; North Rhine-Westphalia: LOGINEO NRW LMS; Saxony: LernSax). In addition, several state-owned digital school platforms are currently being tested (e.g., Lower Saxony: Niedersächsische Bildungscloud; Rhineland-Palatinate: Schulcampus RLP). In addition, there are some external solutions, depending on the region (e.g. IServ, SchulCommSy or itslearning), some of which are running in parallel.

The school closures in spring 2020 provided an important boost in terms of access to learning and schoolwork platforms, and also brought to light the importance of digital content sharing. Such platforms can offer access and opportunitites for participation at different levels. During the closures, many schools also saw that platforms help to reach not only students but also their parents, opening up broader possibilities for participation.

4 Support

Teachers play a decisive role in determining for what purposes and in what way digital media is integrated into lessons and the amount of emphasis placed on promoting digital skills. Their importance cannot be overestimated for student participation in a digital world. In the digital equity model, the professionalization of teachers in the area of digitalization plays a key role.

However, it should be noted that teaching activities must always be considered in the context of the pedagogical and technical conditions of each individual school. This means that other school staff, especially school management, also play a key role in enabling digital education.

Teachers first need the appropriate skills to use digital media in everyday activities. The importance of teachers' skills is currently reflected in the "Education in the Digital World" strategy of the German federal states’ Conference of the Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs (KMK). This strategy aims to develop teachers’ competencies across all phases of teacher training. The KMK's revised standards for teacher training in the educational sciences also set forth corresponding competencies for using digital media in teaching and learning processes. Supporting educational inclusion in a digital world is also explicitly defined as an area of competence for (prospective) teachers, as can be seen, for example, in the orientation framework for initial and in-service teacher training in North Rhine-Westphalia. The section "Promoting learning and achievement" explicitly lists a competence related to educational opportunities. This states: "Recognize and reflect on the special relevance of media competence for educational processes and lifelong learning, and responsibly shape this for schools and lessons with regard to the best possible educational opportunities for all students."

5 Research

Access to high-quality research on how digital technologies can improve learning is the fifth pillar of digital equity. In recent years, few areas of empirical educational research in Germany have received as much attention as the field of digitalization. Between September 2018 and the start of December 2020 alone, 49 research projects on digitalization in education were funded by a Ministry of Education research program. These projects focus on very different levels of the education system, including childhood, youth and family education, school learning, and vocational and teacher training.

The UneS-ICILS project (Unexpectedly Successful Schools in Digital Transition) at the University of Paderborn is worth a mention in regard to inclusion and educational equity. This project will examine ICILS 2018 schools that simultaneously exhibit two supposedly contradictory conditions: A particularly high share of students with a low socioeconomic status, along with above-average scores in computer- and information-related competencies. The aim of this study is to investigate how educational processes are designed at these schools in order to gain knowledge for guiding decisions in the future.

Although much has been achieved in Germany in recent years with regard to the digitalization of education and strengthening of student skills, it is also clear that we are still at the beginning of this development. Fortunately, ICILS will conduct a third study in 2023. New representative data on students’ computer and information skills and on the corresponding conditions will show whether and to what extent newly established measures, activities and strategies actually help to enable all children and young people in Germany to participate in a digitalized world.