Front page article from the Daily Telegraph, 10 January 2003, by John Clare.

Internet fails to improve school results

EQUIPPING schools with a million computers and connecting them all to the internet has had little if any impact on standards, according to a study commissioned by the Department for Education.

Despite what the report called "unprecedented levels of Government investment" - including more than £1 billion over the past five years - it could find "no consistent relationship" between computer use and pupil achievement in any subject at any age.

Its most optimistic conclusion was that computers could help to raise the national test scores of primary school children by a meagre three marks in English if they used the equipment regularly - usually for word processing - either at school or at home. In science, on the other hand, 11-year-olds were likely to perform worse if computers were used in the classroom.

Although there was some evidence that they helped 14-year-olds do marginally better at science, even this finding was inconclusive because pupils made greater progress at some schools that made little or no use of computers.

At GCSE level, the researchers were dismayed to find that computers were rarely used in any subject and that pupils made the greatest progress - equivalent to eight-tenths of a grade - in modern foreign languages, where computer usage was lowest.

The study - said to be one of the most comprehensive of its kind - followed the progress of 700 pupils at 60 primary and secondary schools between 1999 and last year.

One of the report's most striking findings was how little use secondary schools made of the 150 or so computers with which each is now equipped.

The proportions of schools saying they never or hardly ever used computers in lessons for 14-year-olds were 61 per cent in English, 67 per cent in maths and 69 per cent in science.

At GCSE, the proportions rose to 71 per cent, 82 per cent and 70 per cent respectively.

Teachers committed to information and communications technology said its principal virtue was that it motivated pupils whose attention had previously been hard to engage.

The report, which was published without fanfare by Becta - the Government-funded British Educational Communications and Technology Agency - coincided with the annual educational computer fair in London.

Visiting it yesterday, Charles Clarke, the Education Secretary, said: "Some people have contested the value of ICT in teaching and learning. I challenge that view.

"We have spent £1 billion creating an ICT infrastructure in schools, colleges and libraries. We are now beginning to reap the reward for that massive investment as effective use of digital resources in teaching and learning is making a difference to raising standards."