COMPUTING & IT RESOURCES
to participate confidently, reduce barriers to learning and provide greater independence for learners with a wide range of needs. Affordability remains a significant consideration. Higher education institutions continue to balance financial pressures alongside rising student expectations, making long-term value increasingly important. The conversation is shifting away from the initial purchase price towards investing in technology that will support learners consistently throughout their studies while providing flexibility for future developments.
These conversations in Higher Education raise an important question for the wider education sector. If universities increasingly expect students to arrive with strong digital literacy, confidence in collaborative technologies and the ability to navigate digital workflows, those capabilities cannot simply appear at the point of entry. They must be developed progressively throughout primary and secondary education. This is why the wider conversation around screen time matters.
Schools are not introducing technology for its own sake. At their best, digital strategies are designed around improving teaching and learning. Technology can strengthen evidence-informed approaches by enabling more effective feedback, making thinking visible, supporting retrieval practice, enhancing collaboration, improving accessibility and helping teachers better respond to individual learning needs.
The schools making the greatest progress are rarely those with the newest devices. They are the schools with a clear educational vision, where digital strategy is firmly aligned to curriculums, professional learning and long-term school improvement.
They understand that technology is not the strategy. It is an enabler of strategy. That begins with confident educators.
No device, platform or application can improve learning in isolation. Sustainable digital transformation depends on investing in people before products. Teachers need time, professional learning and ongoing support to understand not only how technology works, but when it meaningfully enhances learning and equally when traditional approaches remain the better choice.
Education technology providers have an important responsibility. Supporting schools and universities should not end with supplying hardware. Lasting impact comes from helping institutions develop evidence-informed digital strategies, supporting implementation, building leadership capacity and investing in professional development that enables technology to serve
educational priorities.
That responsibility becomes even more significant as artificial intelligence continues to develop.
AI undoubtedly presents exciting opportunities, from reducing workload to supporting more personalised learning experiences. However, its success will depend far less on the sophistication of the technology than on the professional judgement of educators using it. As with every technological development before it, the key question is not what AI can do, but what it should do to support better teaching, deeper learning and improved outcomes for all learners.
Ultimately, the conversation about technology in education needs to mature. The question is no longer whether digital tools belong in education. Across the sector, they already do. Instead, we should ask whether technology is improving learning, strengthening teaching, widening participation and preparing learners for the future. When technology is grounded in evidence-informed pedagogy, implemented with purpose and supported through sustained professional learning, it becomes far more than time spent looking at a screen. It becomes another tool that helps great teachers do what they do best. That is the difference between simply introducing technology into education and embracing PedTech. It is a distinction that will become increasingly important as education continues to evolve.
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www.education-today.co.uk
July/August 2026
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