Economics, Education and Computers

Abstract

In Chapter 21, we predicted likely technological changes over the next decade and suggested how these changes might influence use of computers in schools. In this final chapter, we do not attempt to predict economic and educational change in a wide range of developing countries. That would be extremely difficult, if at all possible, and beyond the scope of this book. Instead, we discuss the economic environment and its likely impact on computer education in the 1990s. We raise again the matter of rationales: to what extent will each of the four popular Rationales we discussed in Chapter 2 be sustained in the next decade in developing countries? We comment on the international debate sponsored by UNESCO, and particularly on outcomes of the Paris Congress in April 1989. Finally, we ask whether for developing countries dependency is inescapable and inequity will prevail, in computer education. We suggest that at worst, industrial countries will exacerbate both dependency and inequity. At best, they can reduce, but not eliminate them. Only developing countries themselves can do that, possibly through change catalysed by computers in schools.