How Ed-Tech Can Help Leapfrog Progress in Education

Overview & Synopsis

The Center for Universal Education (CUE) at the Brookings Institution studies innovations that can rapidly improve education progress, including innovations that use education technology. If the education sector stays on its current trajectory, by 2030 half of all children and young people around the world will lack basic secondary-level skills needed to thrive. To change this dire prediction, rapid non-linear progress must be made, or what CUE calls "leapfrogging." Technology can help education leapfrog in a number of ways. This brief is the second in a series of Leapfrogging in Education snapshots that provide analyses of CUE's global catalog of education innovations. Of the nearly 3,000 global innovations CUE cataloged, more than one half involve the use of technology, which suggests strong interest in its use and application in aiding educators around the world. This brief answers questions such as: Who implements and funds ed-tech innovations? Who benefits from ed-tech innovations? Where in the world are ed-tech innovations? What kind of hardware is used in ed-tech innovations? What are the goals of ed-tech innovations? How do ed-tech innovations support the learning process? What are the competencies and skills developed by education technology innovations? and How effective are ed-tech innovations? [For the first brief in this series, see ED597321.]