Page 95 - Education in a Digital World

82 National Policymaking

competitiveness and socio-economic improvement” (Castells 1996, p.182). Thus it
is perhaps to be expected that developmental governments have taken ‘a proactive
central role’ in an area of national change such as educational technology (Teo
and Lim 1998, p.122).
These distinctions are certainly apparent in the educational technology policy
histories discussed in this chapter. For example, while differing somewhat in the
degree of private involvement that has been encouraged over the past thirty years,
the Japanese strategy continues to imply a strong belief in a ‘hands on’ approach to
building information societies. As Latzer (1995, p.527) reasons, “the political/
administrative system, with strong central power in the hands of the ministry at the
local and national level, and an unusually close relationship between the civil service
and industry support this approach”. Given this approach, the Japanese education
system has tended to be treated as one element of a wider state coordinated strategy
towards society-wide use of digital technology. Yet as for all ideal-typical
models, this broad view runs the risk of obscuring important differences in empirical
realities, such as the clear working differences in the educational and economic poli-
cies pursued by Japanese and Singaporean governments. Moreover, countries such
as Chile cannot be said to have adopted either an avowedly neo-liberal or devel-
opmental model, given the importance attached to the politics of co-determination
(see Streeck 1992). Indeed, had we extended our focus beyond the five national
examples discussed in this chapter, then the number of ideal-typical models would
undoubtedly increase. As such, it is best to conclude that despite the apparent
commonalities between nations, there is clearly no common global approach to
educational technology policymaking.

Conclusions

This chapter has considered a number of ways in which technology-based
education is presented by national governments as a ‘generic’ solution to common
policy ‘problems’ arising from the knowledge economy, information age and other
recent global shifts. At first glance, then, it is tempting to see these policy expres-
sions of educational technology as forming a ‘global hyper-narrative’ (Stronach
2010) – i.e. a shared discursive means that nation states turn to in an attempt to
‘normalise’ the economic and societal changes associated with globalisation. Yet
while all educational policies and practices are undoubtedly internationalised to
some degree, it would be a mistake to see educational technology policymaking
as simply reflecting what Joel Spring (2009, p.119) terms a common ‘global
educational culture’. Indeed, despite the apparent similarities of these national edu-
cational technology programmes, what has taken place ‘on the ground’ has proven
to be a very different and more diverse matter. At best, these shared discourses and
common proclamations could be seen simply as part of the global language
of ‘education’ that “enable[s] politicians the world over to talk nonsense”
(Stronach 2010, p.1).