Connecting learners: Narrowing the educational divide

IN SUPPORT OFSPONSORED BY

Connecting

learners: Narrowing

the educational divide

The benets from, and barriers to, improved

school connectivity and access to digital learning

Connecting learners

Narrowing the educational divide

Foreword

The path of human progress is marked by milestones created when a

relevant technology arrives at the right time to meet or drive forward a

compelling collective need – just think about Johannes Gutenberg and

the printing press, Grace Hopper and computer programming, and Tim

Berners-Lee and the World Wide Web.

We have now reached another of these technology milestones,

with digital connectivity increasingly underpinning global society.

While education has for decades been greatly challenged by the

digital divide, the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the digital

transformation, creating opportunity from deep adversity. With

schools closed, millions of families around the globe transitioned

overnight to remote learning. Digital experiences, enabled

by connectivity and quality content, have become vital for

students and teachers to continue the pursuit of knowledge.

While disruptive, this watershed has allowed a glimpse of what is

possible when technology is used in innovative ways to provide learning

opportunities for children and young people, wherever they are.

But much work remains for a vision of universal digital connectivity

and learning to be realised. This report by The Economist Intelligence

Unit underscores the importance of accelerating gains in infrastructure

and education in tandem. It quantiﬁes how connecting schools is key to

improved learning outcomes and more prosperous economies, ﬁnding

that a 10% increase in school connectivity can increase the eective

years of schooling for children by 0.6%, and GDP per capita by 1.1%.

It also reveals that, in addition to the need to improve infrastructure,

teachers and students must have the support and tools required to

fully realise the new possibilities that school connectivity brings to

learning. This is true in both developing and developed countries, and

in both urban and rural areas. The digital divide is a challenge for all

societies. Moreover, the beneﬁts of such investments are not limited to

schoolchildren: connected schools serve as community focal points for

broader learning and development, as well as enhancing the quality of

digital literacy among community members.

Connecting learners

Narrowing the educational divide

Collaboration across sectors, such as UNICEF’s partnership with

Ericsson, is key to accelerating and sustaining change. We are proud

to be working together to support the global Giga initiative, which was

launched in 2019 by UNICEF and the International Telecommunication

Union (ITU). Its aim is to connect every school worldwide to the

internet by 2030. Ericsson’s resources and expertise are accelerating

the collection, analysis and visualisation of data in real time, supporting

UNICEF in mapping school connectivity in 35 countries by the end of

2023. This will be a fundamental step toward Giga’s ambitious goal of

connecting every school around the globe within a decade.

The strengthening of universal connectivity is a critical step towards

providing access to digital learning. But our eorts cannot stop there.

That is why UNICEF has launched the Reimagine Education initiative,

with the aim of providing every child and young person access to

world-class digital learning to help them develop the skills needed to

leapfrog to a brighter future. With its focus on school connectivity, the

Giga initiative serves as one of the key pillars of Reimagine Education.

Through further partnership and collaboration, Reimagine Education

builds on improved connectivity, aordability of data, access to devices,

and engagement with young people to apply this transformative vision

in the way we deliver education.

We have a responsibility to accelerate digital inclusion and build a

sustainable future for generations of students to come. We encourage

governments, public institutions, industry and thought leaders to join

us in true public–private partnership. This will provide the leadership

required to achieve quality digital learning, meaningful connectivity,

and access to opportunity for every child.

Börje Ekholm

CEO, Ericsson

Henrietta Fore

UNICEF Executive Director

Connecting learners

Narrowing the educational divide

Contents

Foreword 2

About this report 5

Executive Summary 8

. Introduction 10

. A shift in focus: from education quantity to education quality 11

. Connecting schools, bridging gaps 23

. Beyond the individual: The socioeconomic impacts of school 32

connectivity and access to digital learning

. What’s to gain from connecting schools? 40

. So, where do we go from here? 52

Appendix A: Country proﬁles 67

Brazil 67

El Salvador 70

Kyrgyzstan 72

Niger 74

Sierra Leone 76

United States 78

Appendix B: Methodology note 80

Connecting learners

Narrowing the educational divide

About this report

Alejandro Ganimian

New York University, Assistant Professor

of Applied Psychology and Economics

Alex Wong

International Telecommunication Union (ITU),

Chief, Special Initiatives, and ITU Giga Co-Lead

Borhene Chakroun

UNESCO, Director, Division for Policies

and Lifelong Learning Systems

Christopher Yoo

University of Pennsylvania, John H. Chestnut

Professor of Law, Communication, and

Computer and Information Science and

Director of the Center for Technology,

Innovation and Competition

Eric Kimenyi

African Institute of Mathematical Sciences

(AIMS), Programme Manager, Teacher

Training Programme (TTP) Rwanda

Jane Con

Internet Society, Senior Vice

President for Internet Growth

Jonathan Birdwell – Senior project director

Jeremy Kingsley – Project director

Shivangi Jain – Project manager and

lead economist

Mrigansh Jain – Economist

Anand Kashyap – Researcher

Connecting learners: Narrowing the educational divide is an Economist Intelligence Unit

(EIU) report commissioned by Ericsson. The ﬁndings are based on a literature review, expert

interviews and econometric modelling conducted by The EIU between January and April 2021.

A more detailed description of our methodology is provided in Appendix B. The EIU bears sole

responsibility for the content of this report. The ﬁndings and views expressed do not necessarily

reﬂect the views of the sponsor.

We would like to extend our gratitude to Ericsson and UNICEF for their invaluable advice and

guidance throughout the project. The report has been produced by a team of researchers,

writers and editors, including:

Macke Raymond

Stanford University, Director of the Center for

Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO)

Mario Franco

Millenium@EDU SUSTAINABLE

EDUCATION, Chairperson

Michael Trucano

World Bank, Senior Education &

Technology Policy Specialist and Global

Lead for Innovation in Education

Miguel Brechner

Plan Ceibal Uruguay, Founder

and former President

Radhika Iyengar

Columbia University, The Earth

Institute, Education Sector Director

Tim Unwin

UNESCO Chair in ICT4D and Royal

Holloway, University of London,

Emeritus Professor of Geography

For any enquiries about the report

please contact:

Shivangi Jain

The Economist Intelligence Unit

E: shivangijain@eiu.com

Interviewees

Our thanks are due to the following people for their time and insights:

Connecting learners

Narrowing the educational divide

About The Economist Intelligence Unit

The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) is the research arm of The

Economist Group, publisher of The Economist. As the world’s leading

provider of country intelligence, it helps governments, institutions

and businesses by providing timely, reliable and impartial analysis

of economic and development strategies. Through its public policy

practice, The EIU provides evidence-based research for policymakers

and stakeholders seeking measurable outcomes, in ﬁelds ranging from

gender and ﬁnance to energy and technology. It conducts research

through interviews, regulatory analysis, quantitative modelling and

forecasting, and displays the results via interactive data visualisation

tools. Through a global network of more than 650 analysts and

contributors, The EIU continuously assesses and forecasts political,

economic and business conditions in more than 200 countries. For

more information, visit www.eiu.com.

About Ericsson

Ericsson provides high-performing solutions to enable its

customers to capture the full value of connectivity. The

Company supplies communication infrastructure, services and

software to the telecom industry and other sectors. Ericsson

has approximately 100,000 employees and serves customers

in more than 180 countries. Ericsson is listed on Nasdaq

Stockholm and the Ericsson ADS trade on Nasdaq New York. The

Company’s headquarters are located in Stockholm, Sweden.

Ericsson is sponsoring this report in support of the Company's

global partnership with UNICEF, which is contributing

to mapping school connectivity in 35 countries.

About UNICEF

UNICEF promotes the rights and wellbeing of every child, in

everything we do. Together with our partners, we work in 190

countries and territories to translate that commitment into practical

action, focusing special eort on reaching the most vulnerable and

excluded children, to the beneﬁt of all children, everywhere.

For more information about UNICEF and its

work for children, visit www.unicef.org.

Follow UNICEF on Twitter and LinkedIn.

UNICEF does not endorse any company, brand, product or service.

Connecting learners

Narrowing the educational divide

Why school connectivity?

Even in the most remote, hard-to-reach areas, there are

schools around which entire communities gather, not only

for learning, but also for community-wide access to health

and emergency services. However, nobody knows how many schools there are in the world,

or where they all are. This information gap means that we cannot identify where to deploy

resources—including the digital resources so necessary in an increasingly digital world.

Launched by UNICEF and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in 2019, Giga

is a global initiative to connect every school to the internet, and every young person to

information, opportunity, and choice. Schools, for Giga, are not only a place for learning

and connecting, but also a focal point, a countable unit, to craft business cases to connect

unconnected schools and communities. Giga starts by mapping the location and real-time

connectivity status of every school in the world, to identify connectivity gaps and assess

demand. With this data, it works with industry and governments to identify best possible

connectivity solutions and build sustainable models for ﬁnance and service delivery—

so that every young person and their entire surrounding community can access digital

solutions and meaningfully participate in and contribute to their own empowered future.

Reimagine Education

Under the leadership of UNICEF, with Generation Unlimited

and Giga, the Reimagine Education initiative seeks to radically

scale up digital learning solutions. It aims to enable every

child and young person—some 3.5 billion by 2030—to access world-class digital

learning solutions which can build the skills they need to leapfrog to a brighter

future. The initiative operates through ﬁve key interconnected components:

• World-class digital learning solutions: Personalised learning which provides every

child and young person with a modern education that: is child-centred, self-paced,

individualised, relevant to the child’s context and language-appropriate; is skills-

based (foundational, transferable, digital, entrepreneurial and job-speciﬁc); promotes

universality by reaching all children and young people including the most marginalised;

and employs appropriate technology including digital, low/no tech, and hybrid solutions.

• Connectivity: Connecting every school, child and young person to the internet and to

choice and opportunity;

• Aordability of data and content: Making digital learning more aordable to enable

access by every child and young person;

• Access to devices: Providing devices for children and teachers/facilitators so that

marginalised children and young people can access the best available digital learning

solutions; and

• Young people’s engagement: Young people and volunteers as co-creators of solutions

and who can oer support with advocacy, accountability, and scale.

 https://gigaconnect.org/

Connecting learners

Narrowing the educational divide

Executive summary

In the last few decades, amid the widespread

adoption of digital devices including laptops

and mobile phones, the promise held by

digital connectivity for school-age children

has become increasingly evident. By providing

access to a wealth of resources and enabling

new forms of learning, such as through

adaptive learning platforms, access to the

internet and digital learning has played an

important role in enhancing the quality

of education globally. Improved learning

outcomes proliferate through adolescence

and adulthood, leading to a wider range of

higher education and career opportunities.

Ultimately, these beneﬁts to individuals are

reﬂected in terms of higher incomes, better

health and improved overall well-being.

But the beneﬁts from school connectivity and

digital learning don’t stop at the individual.

Improvements in the quality of education

have been consistently demonstrated to drive

economic growth through spillover eects: a

well-educated workforce is more likely to be

innovative and foster groundbreaking ideas,

leading to economic development and job

creation. To the extent that school connectivity

can enhance the quality of education—when

supplemented by other measures which

enable the eective use of the connectivity,

such as access to devices, the availability

of relevant content, and the provision of

support and tools to teachers and students

to eectively integrate technology into

educational practice—the same eects hold.

Beyond the long-run economic gains derived

through education improvements, school

connectivity also enables community

development, thereby generating additional

impacts. Connecting schools can serve to close

both the educational divide and the digital

divide. Schools are not only places where

children learn, but are also often community

hubs—places where people vote, where public

resources (like vaccines) are administered, and

where people shelter during natural disasters,

among other uses. Providing connectivity to a

school is a way to empower children with access

to world-class digital content, but it is also a

means to enable local entrepreneurship, provide

access to online banking, improve information

channels during emergencies or pandemics,

and open doors for employment through digital

platforms and the gig economy. It is through

this lens that school connectivity becomes an

important focus for achieving broader social and

economic goals in communities on a global scale.

School connectivity and access to digital

learning beneﬁt individuals and society. But the

paths to deriving these beneﬁts are complex.

To better understand these channels through

which school connectivity can impact on

learning and socioeconomic outcomes, The

EIU constructed an economic model. Our

analysis found that increasing levels of school

connectivity can improve both—quantitatively,

a 10% increase in school connectivity

can

increase the eective years of schooling for

children by 0.6%, and GDP per capita by 1.1%.

In Niger, for example, this could mean that

matching school connectivity levels to Rwanda—

with the highest school connectivity level among

developing countries—and Finland—with the

highest school connectivity level globally—

could increase eective years of schooling

by over 10% from 2.7 years. We calculate that

this could boost Niger’s GDP per capita by

up to 20% by 2025 (from projected GDP per

capita of US$550 in 2025 to up to $660).

 Measured using the World Economic Forum’s ‘Internet Access in School index

 Measured using the World Bank’s learning-adjusted years of schooling indicator which provides a measure of educational quality by adjusting the

average of schooling attained by the learning outcomes achieved.

Connecting learners

Narrowing the educational divide

In developed countries, on the other hand,

the challenge is less in terms of access to

connectivity in schools, and more in terms of

the quality of this connectivity. In the United

States, for example, while 99% of schools are

connected to ﬁbre infrastructure to access the

internet, the speed of internet connection varies

substantially across states. We ﬁnd that simply

improving the bandwidth per student across

states could increase national GDP by between

0.4% and 5.5%. A further major challenge with

regard to connectivity in the United States

is the so-called “homework gap”—the lack of

connectivity available to students outside of

schools, which leads to a divergence in the

performance on homework and subsequent

educational performance between students

with and without access. Addressing this

challenge could stimulate even further,

potentially more signiﬁcant, economic gains.

While there are substantial potential gains on

oer from increasing school connectivity—

both for individuals and wider society—

making these a reality is easier said than done.

First, despite the beneﬁts it can oer, school

connectivity levels remain low in many parts

of the world. This is driven by a number of

factors on both the supply and demand sides,

including investment barriers to building

infrastructure to connect hard-to-reach areas,

as well as challenges in the aordability of

connectivity for segments of the population.

Furthermore, obtaining access to the internet

alone does not guarantee that students

and teachers will be able to translate

this into academic beneﬁts, or that these

beneﬁts will subsequently generate wider

socioeconomic beneﬁts. School connectivity

is a necessary precondition, but is only one

piece of the puzzle for achieving the gains.

So, what needs to happen next? This

report, based on the input and insights

of experts, identiﬁes four priorities:

1. Collaboration is key. A holistic strategy—

with cross-government and private sector

collaboration—is needed to coordinate

eorts across stakeholders to overcome

barriers to school connectivity and access

to digital learning tools, and to enable their

eective integration with education systems.

2. Accessibility and aordability. Building

infrastructure to enable access to the

internet is the starting point for beginning

to realise the beneﬁts it can oer. But

having the option to access the internet

is dierent to being able to access it in a

meaningful way—poor quality and high cost

can act as roadblocks. Working together,

governments, businesses and telecom

providers should aim to continually improve

the quality and aordability of connectivity.

3. Embedding the use of the internet

and digital tools in education. Once

aordable access to school connectivity

and digital learning has been achieved,

it must be eectively integrated into

curricula. This requires a change in the

approach to delivering education. It

also requires that teachers are trained to

deliver through these new approaches,

and that they have the tools to do so.

4. Protecting children online. While the

expansion of school connectivity and

access to digital learning come with

numerous learning opportunities for

children, they can also open up the door

to child abuse and exploitation. These

signiﬁcant risks associated with the

expansion of internet access can often

create resistance to its use in education

from parents and teachers. Managing these

signiﬁcant risks to enable the safe and

secure use of the internet will be important

in leveraging the beneﬁts it can oer.

Connecting learners

Narrowing the educational divide

. Introduction

The link between education and socioeconomic

development is well-evidenced. As a result,

education policy is a priority for most

governments, and policymakers often have

two broad levers at their disposal: increasing

the quantity of education, and improving its

quality. While there still remains a gap between

the quantity of education across countries

(measured by average years of schooling), it

is rapidly closing and will reach a natural limit.

Improvement in the quality of education,

however, is boundless, and holds greater

scope for the inﬂuence of policymakers.

Improving internet connectivity and access

to digital learning in schools is becoming

increasingly essential in the context of education,

both from a quantity and quality perspective.

When it is aordable and accessible, with the

relevant content, it not only enables more

children to access education without placing

additional burden on teachers or driving

down quality by increasing classroom sizes,

it also has signiﬁcant quality implications

by expanding access to a wide range of

educational resources, connecting students

to the best educational content and the best

teachers around the world at the click of a

button. In the context of COVID-19, access

to the internet for schoolchildren has allowed

many to continue to learn despite school

closures. At the same time, the pandemic has

highlighted the challenges posed by a lack of

connectivity. If anything, it has acted as an

accelerator for the integration of the internet

within education and can pave the way for

reimagining education systems across the world.

In this report, we explore the role of the

internet and digital tools in education, the

beneﬁts that expansion of school connectivity

can bring to individuals and to societies,

and the challenges not only in terms of

increasing access but also in managing any

negative consequences of this. The report

is based on expert interviews, an extensive

literature review and bespoke economic

analysis to assess the potential gains from,

and challenges to, improved school internet

connectivity and access to digital learning.

• In section 2, we discuss the internet

in the context of education

• In section 3, we explore the beneﬁts to

students from having access to the internet

• In section 4, we identify the wider

socioeconomic spillover eects

from school internet connectivity

and access to digital learning

• In section 5, we quantify the potential

economic gains from expanding school

connectivity in selected countries

• In section 6, we discuss how policymakers,

educational institutions and telecoms

providers can work together to

facilitate, leverage and manage

better internet connectivity and the

use of digital tools in education

Connecting learners

Narrowing the educational divide

While increased years of schooling can

result in higher labour market returns, the

magnitude of the returns depends also on

the interplay between demand and supply

forces in the labour market. If the demand

for educated labour is low relative to supply,

then the returns to education will similarly

be low. In urban China, for example, the

returns to education rose from 4% for each

additional year of schooling in 1988 to 10% in

2001. Most of this increase was attributable

to institutional reforms that increased the

demand for skilled labour.

These ﬁndings

highlight the intricate link between education

and economic performance, and vice versa.

The private returns to education go beyond

the ﬁnancial beneﬁts from increased labour

market earnings. Studies have, for example,

shown a link between maternal education

and child health through the knowledge

acquired by mothers—each additional year

of female primary schooling is estimated

to be associated with approximately

six fewer deaths per 1,000 live births.

Higher income levels can also allow for an

overall improvement in quality of life.

Education: A driver of

economic growth

There is no denying the powerful link

between education and economic growth.

Education is associated with a wide range

of beneﬁts, not only to individuals receiving

education but also to society at large.

At the individual level, numerous studies

have sought to explore what is known as

the “private return” to education.

A more

educated individual is rewarded in the labour

market for their greater productivity—their

prize is a higher wage. According to an OECD

report, The Economic Impacts of Learning

Losses,

data shows that each additional

level of educational attainment is associated

with improved labour market outcomes

for individuals. The report observes that

individuals with higher levels of education

are more likely to ﬁnd employment, remain

employed, learn new skills on the job and

earn more over their working life relative to

those with lower levels of education. The

Mincer equation, quantiﬁes this relationship

between years of schooling and subsequent

earnings

—analysis suggests that every

additional year of schooling can increase the

earnings potential of an individual by 5–8%.

7,8

. A shift in focus: From education

quantity to education quality

 Canals, C. (2017), “Education and economic growth”. https://www.caixabankresearch.com/en/economics-markets/labour-market-demographics/

education-and-economic-growth#:~:text=Education%20directly%20affects%20economic%20growth,as%20well%20as%20their%20quality.

 Hanushek, E. and Woessmann, L. (2020), “The Economic Impacts of Learning Losses”, OECD. https://www.oecd.org/education/The-economic-

impacts-of-coronavirus-covid-19-learning-losses.pdf

 Mincer, J. (1974), “Schooling, experience and earnings”, NBER. https://www.nber.org/books-and-chapters/schooling-experience-and-earnings

 Patrinos, H. (2016), “Estimating the return to schooling using the Mincer equation”, IZA World of Labour 2016:278.

https://wol.iza.org/uploads/articles/278/pdfs/estimating-return-to-schooling-using-mincer-equation.pdf

 Card, D. (1999), “The causal effect of education on earnings”, Handbook of Labor Economics, Volume 3.

https://eml.berkeley.edu/~card/papers/causal_educ_earnings.pdf

 Zhang, J. et al (2005), “Economic returns to schooling in urban China, 1988 to 2001”, Journal of Comparative Economics 33 (2005) 730-752.

http://www.agrod.com/frontier/references/Zhang.2005.EconomicReturns.JournalOfComparativeEconomics.Vol33.p730.pdf

 Angrist, N. et al (2018), “Learning-Adjusted Years of Schooling (LAYS)”, World Bank, Policy Research Working Paper 8591.

http://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/243261538075151093/pdf/WPS8591.pdf

Connecting learners

Narrowing the educational divide

education and the contribution it can make to

achieving the UN’s Sustainable Development

Goals such as reducing hunger and poverty

levels, achieving greater gender equality,

and enabling a transition to clean energy.

Economic theory suggests that individuals

discount these wider societal beneﬁts of

education, resulting in “under-consumption”,

or less education than would be socially

optimal.

Hence, education policy forms

an important component of public policy

and accounts for a signiﬁcant share of

government expenditure across the world

in order to expand access to education and

reap its economic beneﬁts—globally, public

sector expenditure on education accounted

for 4.5% of total GDP in 2017, reaching

over 5% on average in OECD countries

and over 7% in the Nordic countries.

The virtuous cycle of education

The contribution of education to sustainable economic development

Source: EIU research

But the beneﬁts of education don’t stop

at the individual—there are also spillover

eects. A more educated youth population

leads to a more educated, skilled and

productive workforce which is more capable

of innovation and fostering groundbreaking

ideas. This contributes to more economic

development and facilitates a virtuous cycle

of: more income, more spending, more

jobs, more economic development, and

back to more income. Aghion et al. (2009)

show this relationship in the context of the

United States,

while others have provided

cross-country evidence.

A 2012 study by

UNESCO found that for every US$1 invested

in education, US$10–15 can be generated as a

return to the investment in economic growth.

A more recent 2018 programme conducted

by the FT with Credit Suisse illustrated the

various multiplier eects of investment in

The virtuous cycle of education

The contribution of education to sustainable economic development

Increased

education

Increased individual

incomes

Increased consumer

spending

Increased economic

development

Increased

number of jobs

 Aghion, P. et al (2009), “The causal impact of education on economic growth: Evidence from U.S.”.

https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/aghion/files/causal_impact_of_education.pdf

 Romer, P. (1989), “Human capital and growth: Theory and evidence”, National Bureau of Economic Research, Working Paper No. 3173.

https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w3173/w3173.pdf

 UNESCO (2012), “Youth and skills: Putting education to work”. Global Education Monitoring Report Team.

https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000218003

 “Education: The multiplier effect”. https://channelsftcom/thevalueofknowledge/infographic/

 Misra, S. and Ghadai, S. (2015), “Merit Goods, Education Public Policy– India At Crossroads”, Journal of Education and Practice, ISSN 2222-1735,

Vol.6, No.12, 2015. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1080710.pdf

 Based on World Bank data available at: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SE.XPD.TOTL.GD.ZS

Connecting learners

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Individual/family Community/society

Monetary • Higher probability of

employment

• Greater productivity

• Higher earnings

• Reduced poverty

• Higher productivity

• More rapid economic

growth

• Poverty reduction

• Long-run development

Non-monetary • Better health

• Improved education and

health of children/family

• Greater resilience and

adaptability

• More engaged citizenship

• Better choices

• Greater life satisfaction

• Increased social mobility

• Better-functioning

institutions/service delivery

• Higher levels of civic

engagement

• Greater social cohesion

The importance of not only

educational quantity, but quality

While improving access to education and

increasing the number of years of education

every child receives are important, the scope

of education policy to inﬂuence this is limited

beyond a certain point. Although access to

even basic education remains alarmingly

low in many parts of the developing world,

the average years of education across the

world have been growing steadily at a rate

of 1.3% each year since 1990, and reached

a global average of 8.5 years in 2019.

access to education continues to grow,

focus has been shifting towards enhancing

the quality of education being provided.

The beneﬁts of education

The monetary and non-monetary beneﬁts to individuals and societies

Source: EIU research; World Bank

 Angrist, N. et al (2018), “Learning-Adjusted Years of Schooling (LAYS)”, World Bank, Policy Research Working Paper 8591.

http://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/243261538075151093/pdf/WPS8591.pdf

 UNDP Human Development Reports. http://hdr.undp.org/en/indicators/103006#

Connecting learners

Narrowing the educational divide

Schooling and education are not synonymous—

the education or learning from one year

of schooling varies substantially across

countries as, even though the quantity of

education remains the same, the quality

varies.

Research has found that what matters

more for the individual and economy-wide

beneﬁts associated with education is not the

number of years of schooling, but its quality.

In fact, research goes as far as to suggest that

“without improving school quality, developing

countries will ﬁnd it dicult to improve their

long run economic performance.”

Moving

beyond quantitative measures of schooling,

new indicators are therefore now combining

these measures with measures of the quality

of education. The learning-adjusted years of

schooling (LAYS) indicator introduced by the

World Bank, for example, adjusts the number

of years of schooling attained by children

on average in each country for the learning

achieved through this schooling, according to

average performance across standardised tests.

At the individual level, analysis by Hanuschek

et al. (2015) ﬁnds that measures of educational

quality such as numeracy and reading

proﬁciency explain dierences in earnings

between individuals even after accounting for

any dierences in years of schooling.

Similarly,

at the economy-wide level, test scores which

reﬂect educational quality are found to be

associated with more rapid economic growth.

In fact, years of schooling no longer seem to

inﬂuence economic growth once quality is

accounted for.

It seems, therefore, that what

 UNDP Human Development Reports. http://hdr.undp.org/en/indicators/103006#

 Angrist, N. et al (2018), “Learning-Adjusted Years of Schooling (LAYS)”, World Bank, Policy Research Working Paper 8591.

http://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/243261538075151093/pdf/WPS8591.pdf

 Grant, C. (2017), “The contribution of education to economic growth”. Institute of Development Studies.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5b9b87f340f0b67896977bae/K4D_HDR_The_Contribution_of_Education_to_Economic_Growth_Final.pdf

 See Angrist, N. et al (2018), “Learning-Adjusted Years of Schooling (LAYS)”, World Bank, Policy Research Working Paper 8591.

http://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/243261538075151093/pdf/WPS8591.pdf

 Angrist, N. et al (2018), “Learning-Adjusted Years of Schooling (LAYS)”, World Bank, Policy Research Working Paper 8591.

http://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/243261538075151093/pdf/WPS8591.pdf

Growth in education quantity

Average years of schooling across the world (1990-2020)

1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015 20

Very high human development High human development

Medium human development

Low human development World

Growth in education quantity

Average years of schooling across the world (1990-2020)

Source: United Nations Development Programme

Connecting learners

Narrowing the educational divide

• Learning styles and teaching approaches.

Approaches to delivering learning have been

rapidly evolving over the past decades, with

a growing focus on tailored learning to match

individual requirements. Education experts,

Neil Fleming and Coleen Mills, developed

the VARK learning model which identiﬁed

four types of learner, acknowledging the

dierent approaches required to maximise

learning for each: visual learners, auditory

learners, reading/writing learners and

kinesthetic learners.

Similarly, personality

types such as introversion and extroversion

can impact learning preferences and the

retention of information. In Susan Cain’s

book, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in

a World that Can’t Stop Talking,

one of

the critical dierences identiﬁed between

introverts and extroverts is that extroverts

tend to get their energy from social

interaction, while introverts gain energy

from quiet spaces and a time to think and

reﬂect alone. Hence, to maximise learning

outcomes we need teaching methods that

are engaging, inspiring and eective for all.

matters more for individual and economic

development is not how much schooling is

received but how good that schooling is.

So if the quality of education is really what drives

the beneﬁts that it creates, the key question

then becomes: How can we ensure academic

excellence? Research has identiﬁed a number of

factors which inﬂuence the quality of education

and the learning outcomes it can generate:

• Levels of support and degree of student–

teacher interaction. The amount of support

and direct teacher interaction provided to

students can play an important role in learning

outcomes. The impact of class size has, for

example, been widely studied. Two seminal

papers provide evidence of the impact of

smaller class sizes on learning quality: Project

STAR and a 1999 analysis of Israeli schools

by economists Joshua Angrist and Victor

Lavy. Using a regression model, Angrist and

Lavy show that reducing class size induces

a signiﬁcant and substantial increase in test

scores for fourth and ﬁfth graders (students

typically between the ages of 9-11).

Project STAR (the “Tennessee Study”)

From 1985 to 1989, 11,600 Tennessee students from kindergarten to third

grade were randomly assigned to three class-size categories: 13–17 students,

22–25 students, and more than 25 students. An average student assigned to

the smallest classes had a reading score nearly 8% higher than students in the

medium-sized classes, and an average maths score which was 9% higher.

Education economists Alan Krueger and Diane Schanzenbach further analysed Project

STAR’s results to assess the long-run implications for students. They concluded that

reducing class sizes from 22 to 15 students has a 5.5% return in annual beneﬁts.

 Achilles, C. (2008), “Tennessee’s Student Teacher Achievement Ratio (STAR) project”, Harvard Dataverse, V1.

https://dataverse.harvard.edu/dataset.xhtml?persistentId=hdl:1902.1/10766

 Krueger, A. and Schanzenbach, D. (2000), “The Effect of Attending a Small Class in the Early Grades on College-Test Taking and Middle School Test

Results: Evidence from Project Star”, Princeton University, Industrial Relations Section Working Paper No. 427.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=223492

 University of Kansas, “4 Different Learning Styles You Should Know: The VARK Model”.

https://educationonline.ku.edu/community/4-different-learning-styles-to-know#:~:text=These%20different%20learning%20

styles%E2%80%94visual,understand%20their%20own%20learning%20preferences.

 See Shulman, R. (2018), “10 Ways Educators Can Make Classrooms More Innovative”.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/robynshulman/2018/11/19/10-ways-educators-can-make-classrooms-more-innovative/?sh=15f0e6c67f87

Connecting learners

Narrowing the educational divide

In his research, John Hattie synthesised

the ﬁndings from over 500,000 studies

which measure the impact of dierent

teaching styles and approaches

on student achievement.

• Complementary learning tools. In

addition to the degree of interaction

with educators and the teaching styles

adopted, the tools used to support

learning can also play an inﬂuential role in

the ability of students to gain knowledge

through learning. Historically, teaching

has evolved from the teacher being the

primary source of knowledge to this being

supplemented by textbooks.

Today, in

many parts of the world, textbooks are also

rapidly being replaced by digital learning

tools such as electronic textbooks

and

other online resources ranging from

basic use of the internet to gain access to

information to sophisticated technologies

and advanced software that use artiﬁcial

intelligence to deliver tailored learning

content.

While there are drawbacks to

these technologies, not least in terms of

access and aordability, in many cases

they have been found to enhance the

quality of learning through improving the

learning experience and providing easy

and up-to-date access to information.

 Hattie J (), “Teachers make a difference, what is the research evidence?”, Australian Council for Educational Research ACER).

https://research.acer.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1003&context=research_conference_2003

 Chen, G. (2020), “Public Classrooms Say Goodbye Textbooks, Hello e-Texts”. https://www.publicschoolreview.com/blog/public-classrooms-say-

goodbye-textbooks-hello-e-texts

 Ross, T. (2015), “The Death of Textbooks?”. https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2015/03/the-death-of-textbooks/387055/

 Chen, G. (2020), “Public Classrooms Say Goodbye Textbooks, Hello e-Texts”. https://www.publicschoolreview.com/blog/public-classrooms-say-

goodbye-textbooks-hello-e-texts

Connecting learners

Narrowing the educational divide

Enhancing education quality

The cost and eectiveness of alternative means

to improve the quality of education

Source: Education Endowment Foundation (2018)

, EIU analysis

Methods of enhancing

learning quality

Cost

(1-5; 1=high

cost)

Evidence on

impact

(1–5; 1=low)

Time to

impact

(months)

EIU

impact

rating

Levels of support

and degree of

student–teacher

interaction

Mentoring 3 4 0 months

Peer tutoring 5 4 5 months

Extension of

school times

3 3 2 months

Parental

engagement

3 3 3 months

One-to-one

tuition

2 4 5 months

Reducing

classroom sizes

2 3 3 months

Small group

tuitions

3 2 4 months

Learning styles

and approaches

Collaborative

learning

5 4 5 months

Individualised

instruction

5 3 3 months

Homework 5 2 2 months

Tailored learning

styles

5 2 2 months

Feedback 5 3 8 months

Within-class

attainment

grouping

5 2 3 months

Complementary

learning tools

and activities

Digital

technology

3 4 4 months

Arts

participation

4 3 2 months

Sports

participation

3 2 2 months

 EEF Teaching and Learning Toolkit. https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/evidence-summaries/teaching-learning-toolkit/

 EIU analysis places the following weights on each of the criteria to assess the overall impact of alternative means of enhancing the quality of

education: cost = 30% weight; evidence on impact = 50% weight; time to impact = 20% weight

Connecting learners

Narrowing the educational divide

The role of the internet in

enhancing the quality of education

While there are a number of ways to enhance

the quality of education, the use of digital

learning tools through access to the internet

is gaining particular traction due to both its

impact on educational outcomes and its longer-

term impacts on students by providing them

with high-in-demand digital skills that open

doors to higher education and a wider range

of career options. These digital skills also allow

communities to develop by enabling new and

more eective approaches to doing business,

providing access to a greater online market.

The potential uses of the internet in the context

of education are wide-ranging. From the

perspective of students, it puts access to learning

material and resources at the tips of their

ﬁngers—including not only the best prepared

content, but also access to live or pre-recorded

lessons led by the best teachers from around

the world. The internet serves as a repository of

knowledge that is not restricted by geography

and is available to anyone with connectivity. It

allows the traditional schooling model to evolve,

facilitating access to a wealth of educational

material. Meanwhile, access to textbooks

is far more restrictive—an evaluation of the

curriculum in Kenya, for example, concluded

that English textbooks beneﬁt primarily elite and

academically stronger students. The internet

has the potential to facilitate the availability

of resources in local languages and could

produce achievement gains on a wider scale.

Increased school connectivity and access to

digital learning tools also provide numerous

resources for teachers to enable them to

both develop professionally and teach more

eectively. In developing countries, higher

internet penetration provides an opportunity to

develop the skills of teachers in a cost-eective

manner, which is particularly crucial when there

is a shortage of qualiﬁed teachers. As access

to education across the world grows, there is a

risk that the teaching profession could become

unmanageable with growing class sizes—in this

context, digital technologies can also support

teachers by providing them with additional tools

and, through blended learning approaches,

freeing time for them to focus on teaching

rather than on administration. Furthermore,

internet access enables teachers to focus

attention where it is needed by providing real-

time information on student performance.

 Deloitte (2014), “Value of connectivity: Economic and social benefits of expanding internet access”. https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/

Deloitte/ie/Documents/TechnologyMediaCommunications/2014_uk_tmt_value_of_connectivity_deloitte_ireland.pdf

 Internet Society (2017), “Internet Access and Education: Key considerations for policy makers”.

https://www.internetsociety.org/resources/doc/2017/internet-access-and-education/

We need to address the sharp

increase in heterogeneity in student

preparation for school caused

by recent expansions in access.

Technology has several comparative

advantages to complement teacher-

led instruction on this front.

Alejandro Ganimian, Assistant Professor

at New York University

Connecting learners

Narrowing the educational divide

Finally, in addition to the use of the internet

by students and teachers, increased school

connectivity provides policymakers with

better tools to monitor and evaluate

programmes. This enables more eective

and agile policymaking to contribute to the

overall quality of education across a nation.

Digital tools can, for example, enable more

sophisticated Education Management

Information Systems (EMIS), which can be

used to disseminate to the government

high-quality and timely data on educational

inputs, outputs and outcomes.

Professional

development

courses

Reduced

burden of

managing

large class

sizes

Access to

real-time

information

on student

performance

Real-time

access to

learning

outcomes

Real-time

monitoring

of policy

implementation

Engagement

of external

players in

education

Connecting students, teachers and policymakers

The role of school connectivity in education

School internet

connectivity

Teachers

Government

policy

Students

Facilitated

interaction

Access to

textbooks

and content

in desired

languages

On-demand

classes and

vocational

courses

Development

of digital

skills

Facilitated

interaction

Connecting students, teachers and policymakers

The role of school connectivity in education

Source: EIU research

Without connectivity, the learning

crisis is often hidden. The focus

is on getting more children

into schools, but this doesn’t

mean that they are learning.

Through better connectivity,

we can get data on a much more

frequent basis and improve

overall learning outcomes.

Radhika Iyengar, Education Sector Director

at Columbia University

 UNICEF (2020), “EMIS to monitor ICT in education”. https://iite.unesco.org/highlights/emis-and-ict-in-education/

Connecting learners

Narrowing the educational divide

COVID-19 and the widening

role of the internet

Around April 2020, as part of measures to

curb the spread of COVID-19, more than

190 countries instituted nationwide school

closures putting, in the blink of an eye, over

1.6 billion students out of school-based

education.

From schools transitioning to

online classes, to oce workers now working

from home, all of sudden the internet—

and speciﬁcally, access to the internet at

home—became the solution to the threat of

complete social disconnection and economic

standstill posed by the global lockdown. In

fact, because of access to connectivity in the

home, it is estimated that at least 100 million

schoolchildren across the world were able to

continue learning. As a comparison, with the

levels of access available in 2000, a similar

pandemic would have allowed less than 1.3

million children to remain connected.

Yet,

while progress has been made with 100 million

schoolchildren able to continue to learn during

the current pandemic, this represents only

one in 16 school-aged children—over 1.3

billion do not have access to the internet in

their homes.

Although it is clear that access to the internet

at home remains inadequate in many regions,

the pandemic has accelerated a transition in

the model of education towards increased

integration of digital technologies. Many

believe that it oers the opportunity to “build

back better” by re-imagining education and

how it is delivered.

It has made us realise

that: (a) it is not only access to the internet

through schools, but also access at home that

is important; and (b) how late we already are in

embracing and leveraging the full potential of

these technologies. In the world of education,

the pandemic highlighted the variety of roles

schools can play if teachers and students are

connected to the internet, from continuing to

provide regular classes to oering physical and

mental health guidance and, perhaps most

importantly, reducing the impact of isolation.

Educators also discovered a silver lining in the

creative approaches they could take towards

schooling. They have embraced novel ways of

interactive learning and have ultimately led the

way in enriching life experiences and fostering

meaningful cultural exchanges while teaching

from remote locations. For many educators, it

would have been better if they were already

connected and trained with internet tools.

 UNICEF (2020), “How many children and young people have internet access at home?”. https://www.itu.int/en/ITU-D/Statistics/Documents/

publications/UNICEF/How-many-children-and-young-people-have-internet-access-at-home-2020_v2final.pdf

 Rastogi, V. et al (2020), “A $2 Trillion Plan to Bring Two Billion More People into the Digital Age”. https://www.bcg.com/en-in/publications/2020/plan-

to-bring-high-speed-internet-access-to-two-billion-people

 UNICEF  “Two thirds of the world’s schoolage children have no internet access at home new UNICEFITU report says”

https://wwwuniceforg/pressreleases/twothirdsworldsschoolagechildrenhavenointernetaccesshomenewunicefitu

 Iyengar, R. (2020), “Education as the path to a sustainable recovery from COVID-19”, PROSPECTS volume 49, pages77–80(2020).

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11125-020-09488-9

Things have changed quite a bit with COVID-19. We

now realise that communities play a big role beyond

schools. The idea that children only learn in schools

is an old model and we’re now moving beyond

this idea. Technology and the internet enable an

interface between the school and the community.”

Radhika Iyengar, Education Sector

Director at Columbia University

Connecting learners

Narrowing the educational divide

While internet connectivity has enabled the

continuity of learning for some, the transition

has not been seamless in all contexts, and

access to the internet to respond to the

impacts of the pandemic has not been

an option for everyone.

A World Bank

report concluded that learning losses as a

result of school closures could reduce the

incomes across all impacted students by a

total of US$10 trillion over their lifetimes,

with these costs falling disproportionately

on disadvantaged students

—this could

translate into an income loss of approximately

3% per student.

There is no doubt that

the digital divide is becoming all the more

evident and is perpetuating inequalities.

While the focus of this research is on

connectivity to the internet and access to

digital tools through schools, the importance

of internet connectivity for schoolchildren

regardless of their physical location—be

it a school, home, the public library, or

anywhere else—is now clearer than ever.

Regardless of the shift in education models

initiated by the pandemic and the realisation

of the need for internet connectivity in

general, the role of school connectivity and

access to digital learning remains an important

area of discussion for a number of reasons:

• Many children are returning to school.

Many of the school closures instigated

by governments were short-term—by

September 2020, only 50% of learners

were still aected and this has continued

to decline.

As students return to school,

having access to the internet and digital

learning tools in their schools remains

important. If anything, the temporary

school closures have changed perceptions

on digital technologies in education and

have highlighted the beneﬁts of the use

of online tools in supporting learning, and

not just replacing traditional methods of

teaching. Indeed, the need to provide digital

connectivity beyond schools is also now

recognised, but without diminishing the role

of school connectivity.

 Unwin, T. et al (2020), “Education for the most marginalised post-COVID-19: Guidance for governments on the use of digital technologies in

education”, EdTech Hub. https://edtechhub.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Education-for-the-most-marginalised-Report-Act-2-v8.pdf

 World Bank (2020), “COVID-19 Could Lead to Permanent Loss in Learning and Trillions of Dollars in Lost Earnings”. https://www.worldbank.org/en/

news/press-release/2020/06/18/covid-19-could-lead-to-permanent-loss-in-learning-and-trillions-of-dollars-in-lost-earnings

 Hanushek, E. and Woessmann, L. (2020), “The Economic Impacts of Learning Losses”, OECD.

https://www.oecd.org/education/The-economic-impacts-of-coronavirus-covid-19-learning-losses.pdf

 Unwin, T. et al (2020), “Education for the most marginalised post-COVID-19: Guidance for governments on the use of digital technologies in

education”, EdTech Hub. https://edtechhub.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Education-for-the-most-marginalised-Report-Act-2-v8.pdf

I don’t think physical schools will be going away

anytime soon. Yes, some families might shift to a

new hybrid form of education. But these are going to

be the elites and those that have the ability to do so.

So students that do show up in schools are likely

to be those with more limited resources, making

school connectivity all the more important.

Macke Raymond, Director of CREDO at Stanford University

Connecting learners

Narrowing the educational divide

Nobody gets a telecommunication

connection for its own sake. You

get it for the things that you can

do with it. Demonstrating the

impact of what you can do with

it provides the missing link.

When you say that connectivity

improves health or education

outcomes, that is where you

can start to build solutions.

Christopher Yoo, Director at the Center for

Technology, Innovation and Competition at the

University of Pennsylvania

 USAID (2018), “Better connectivity, Better programs: How to implement a broadband demand aggregation program”.

https://www.usaid.gov/sites/default/files/documents/15396/Better_Connectivity_Better_Programs_April2018.pdf

• Enabling connectivity for communities.

School connectivity is important not only

for the beneﬁts it provides to learners,

but also for enabling wider connectivity

for communities. By creating demand for

telecoms services, school connectivity

can make it commercially viable for the

infrastructure to be developed and can

also increase service quality and reduce

costs—a concept known as demand

aggregation.

• Obtaining government funding

for infrastructure development.

Demonstrating the impact of developing

telecoms infrastructure is a prerequisite for

obtaining public sector ﬁnancing. School

connectivity provides this impact. However,

education budgets are already overstretched.

Hence, ﬁnding ﬁnancing mechanisms

that engage the private sector and other

government entities will be crucial.

Connecting schools can serve to close both

the educational divide and the digital divide.

Schools are not only places where children

learn, but also often community hubs—places

where people vote, where public resources

(like vaccines) are administered, and where

people shelter during natural disasters, among

other community uses. Providing connectivity

to a school is a way to empower children with

access to world-class digital content, but it is

also a means to enable local entrepreneurship,

provide access to online banking, improve

information channels during emergencies or

pandemics, and open doors for employment

through digital platforms and the gig economy.

It is through this lens that school connectivity

becomes an important focus for achieving

broader social and economic goals in

communities on a global scale.

The remainder of this report focuses on the

role of the internet in the context of schools,

and the impacts of this connectivity not only

for students, but also for the rest of society

and wider economies.

Connecting learners

Narrowing the educational divide

Internet connectivity:

A basic human right

Access to the internet is increasingly becoming

a basic human right. The United Nations

Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC),

adopted by 140 countries in 1989, established

a legal framework for the basic human rights

of every child to “grow, learn, play, develop and

ﬂourish with dignity”.

While the CRC pre-

dates the widespread adoption of the internet,

the challenges, threats and opportunities

posed by digital technologies in achieving its

aims and upholding the rights of children are

becoming increasingly evident. As highlighted

by the United Nations Special Rapporteur on

freedom of opinion and expression: “access

to the internet is not only essential to enjoy

the right to freedom of expression, but also

other rights, such as the right to education,

3. Connecting schools, bridging gaps

the right to freedom of association and

assembly, the right to full participation in

social, cultural and political life and the right

to social and economic development.”

As a society, we have not yet achieved universal

and aordable access to the internet for all.

While the global internet penetration rate

has increased substantially from 17% in 2005,

it remains only just over 50%.

There are

also large disparities between, and within,

countries across rural and urban populations.

In developed countries, 87% of the urban

population has access to the internet. In the

least-developed countries, the ﬁgure stands

at only 25%—and for the rural population,

access is even lower at 10%.

Regionally,

Europe has the highest internet usage rates,

while Africa has by far the lowest.

 UNICEF, Convention on the Rights of the Child. https://www.unicef.org/child-rights-convention/what-is-the-convention

 United Nations General Assembly, 10 August 2011. https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/Opinion/A.66.290.pdf

 International Telecommunication Union (2020), “Measuring digital development: Facts and figures 2020”.

https://www.itu.int/en/ITU-D/Statistics/Documents/facts/FactsFigures2020.pdf

 Ibid.

 Ibid.

Connecting learners

Narrowing the educational divide

Disparities in internet access

The share of individuals using the internet across regions (%)

World Africa Arab States

Asia & Paciﬁc

Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS)

Europe The Americas

2005 2010 2015 2020

Disparities in internet access

The share of individuals using the internet across regions (%)

Source: : International Telecommunication Union 2020

Inequalities in school connectivity

The disparities in internet access across

countries at the national level are also reﬂected

in disparities in school connectivity. Lack of

access to the internet hampers access to

education and denies the “right to education”,

further widening educational gaps between

the privileged and the deprived, or those

with internet access and those without.

The inequality that a lack of school connectivity

and access to digital learning creates begins

from childhood is perpetuated from that point

on—in many ways, as reﬂected by Henrietta

Fore, UNICEF Executive Director, “lack of

internet access is costing the next generation

their futures.”

Looking ﬁrst at the opportunities,

or lack thereof, for children therefore forms

a good starting point to evaluate the broader

impacts of internet disconnectivity.

 International Telecommunication Union. https://www.itu.int/en/ITU-D/Statistics/Pages/stat/default.aspx

 Bajpai, R. (2020), “Right to Education & Emergence of a Digital Divide in Digital India”.

http://ohrh.law.ox.ac.uk/right-to-education-emergence-of-a-digital-divide-in-digital-india/

 UNICEF (2020), “Two thirds of the world’s school-age children have no internet access at home, new UNICEF-ITU report says”.

https://www.unicef.org/press-releases/two-thirds-worlds-school-age-children-have-no-internet-access-home-new-unicef-itu

Connecting learners

Narrowing the educational divide

Enhancing the quality of education

The relationship between school internet connectivity and education quality

Source: World Economic Forum Global Competitiveness Index (2017), World Bank Human Capital Index (2017)

 UNICEF (2020), “How many children and young people have internet access at home?”.

https://data.unicef.org/resources/children-and-young-people-internet-access-at-home-during-covid19/

Globally, it is estimated that 2.2 billion children

and young people under the age of 25—or

two-thirds of this age group—do not have

access to the internet.

Dierences in school

internet access also give rise to dierences

in the quality of education within and across

countries, and threaten to widen the gap

in outcomes for students with and without

access. At the national level, low levels of school

connectivity are associated with poor quality

of education, with higher-income countries

displaying both greater connectivity and higher

quality of education (see chart below). Access

to the internet in schools holds the potential

to equalise opportunities at an early age which

can then proliferate throughout childhood and

adulthood—bringing not only beneﬁts at an

individual level but to society in its entirety.

Enhancing the quality of education

The relationship between school internet connectivity and education quality

Low income

Education quality (Learning-adjusted years of schooling)

School internet connectivity (Index score 1-7; 7 = best)

Middle income High income

0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0 3.5 4.0 4.5 5.0 5.5 6.0 6.5

Connecting learners

Narrowing the educational divide

Leveling the playing ﬁeld

As digital learning becomes increasingly

embedded within education curricula, the

cost of a lack of school connectivity will grow.

The gap in educational outcomes between

schoolchildren with and without access to the

internet at school could widen more than ever

before. While the disparity in school connectivity

creates a massive threat of economic and social

divergence, it also highlights the signiﬁcant

opportunity to level the playing ﬁeld for all

children regardless of geography or income

levels through eorts to improve access. A

study by Deloitte found that internet access

could be extended to an additional 640 million

children around the world, bringing with it the

beneﬁts of access to resources, improved quality

of education, better learning outcomes and

enhanced employability.

Studies have highlighted the signiﬁcant

potential of school connectivity to bring

direct beneﬁts to individual students. The

chain of beneﬁts begins from improved

learning outcomes for children, driven by

improved access to learning resources and an

enhanced quality of education. Combined with

improved digital skills, the improved outcomes

for students also expand opportunities

for further education. Beyond education,

this then opens up doors to new career

pathways, bringing higher income levels and

an overall improvement in quality of life.

Individual-level beneﬁts from school connectivity and access to digital learning

Pathway from improved connectivity to a better quality of life

Source: EIU

 Deloitte (2014), “Value of connectivity: Economic and social benefits of expanding internet access”. https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/

Deloitte/ie/Documents/TechnologyMediaCommunications/2014_uk_tmt_value_of_connectivity_deloitte_ireland.pdf

Individual-level beneﬁts from school connectivity

Pathway from improved connectivity to a better quality of life

Improved income

Improved employability

Improved education performance

Improved opportunities in

secondary/tertiary education

Improved quality

of education

Improved access

to resources

Improved digital

literacy skills

Improved

quality of

life

Improved school internet connectivity

Connecting learners

Narrowing the educational divide

If a student is studying about a particular topic in science, the

amount of information they can get from an illustration in

a textbook is very different to seeing a live simulation from

digital content obtained through the internet - the ability to

learn, and also to retain the information, is enhanced.

Eric Kimenyi, Teacher Training Program Manager at the

African Institute of Mathematical Sciences

• Improving learning outcomes. Internet

connectivity has been rapidly evolving from

a nice-to-have to an essential element of

education. From putting access to knowledge

and information at our ﬁngertips, to enabling

new ways of interactive learning, the beneﬁts

to learners are manifold.

Through improving the quality of education,

school connectivity has been shown to

have positive impacts on learning outcomes

for children. Michigan State University

conducted a 2018 study on the impact of

internet access on student learning in Peru.

Using variation in the timing of internet

installation across schools in the country,

internet access was found to lead to initial

modest improvements in maths scores,

but these impacts were found to grow

signiﬁcantly over time as schools adapted

by hiring teachers with computer training.

Johnston and Ksoll (2017) also evaluated a

programme that broadcast live instruction

via satellite to rural primary school students

in Ghana. The intervention improved the

numeracy scores of students in grades 2

through 4, as well as certain foundational

literacy tasks,

driven by improvements in

the quality of education.

 UNICEF (2017), “Access to the internet and digital literacy”. Discussion Paper Series: Children’s Rights and Business in a Digital World.

https://www.unicef.org/csr/css/UNICEF_CRB_Digital_World_Series_ACCESS.pdf

 Kho, K. et al (2018), “Impact of Internet Access on Student Learning in Peruvian Schools”. Michigan State University, International Food Policy

Research Institute. http://econ.msu.edu/repec/wp/Draft04-08-18.pdf

 See Ganimian, A. et al. (2020), “Realising the promise: How can education technology improve learning for all”. The Brookings Institution, Center for

Universal Education. https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/edtech_playbook_full_v2.pdf

Connecting learners

Narrowing the educational divide

The quality enhancement from school

connectivity and digital learning which

results in improved learning outcomes comes

through a number of channels:

- Access to learning resources. First, the

internet provides access to unlimited

learning resources where previously

students were restricted to the knowledge

of their teachers and the information

contained within textbooks. Students in

remote rural villages are suddenly able

to access not only static content, but also

on-demand or live content, produced and

delivered by the world’s leading academics

and educationalists, thus removing

geographical and income barriers in access

to quality education. Massively Open

Online Courses (MOOCs) are another form

of digital learning that are also becoming

increasingly popular as a means of

supplementing traditional learning provided

by schools and other educational settings,

oering students a holistic education.

These new channels of learning opened up

by the internet oer signiﬁcant potential to

improve the educational outcomes for those

who are able to obtain access.

- Dynamic adaptation of curricula. The

internet can also be used as a tool for

learning beyond the provision of learning

resources. The ability to adapt learning

based on the speciﬁc needs of the child

and in response to their abilities through

dynamic feedback loops both signiﬁcantly

reduces the burden on teachers to tailor

content to meet the needs of a wide range

of abilities, and provides better learning

outcomes for children. Recent research

on the use of technology in education in

India has found that, for students with

low performance levels, the ability to

receive personalised education based on

individual ability had a signiﬁcant impact

on performance in maths tests.

 Selwyn, N. (2014), “The Internet and Education”. https://www.bbvaopenmind.com/en/articles/the-internet-and-education/

 De Barros, A. and Ganimian, A. (2021), “Which Students Benefit from Personalized Learning? Experimental Evidence from a Math Software in Public

Schools in India”.

Technology has the potential to expand access

to learning materials, deliver content in ways

that increase student engagement and adjust

dynamically to each child’s level and rate of

learning, and provide feedback to target the

misconceptions underlying student errors.

Very few software products that have

been evaluated in developing countries

leverage these comparative advantages.

Alejandro Ganimian, Assistant Professor

at New York University

Connecting learners

Narrowing the educational divide

- Improvements in teaching quality.

School connectivity can also facilitate

improved teaching quality. The internet

provides teachers with access to a range

of resources, including collaboration

with other teachers through online

Professional Learning Communities.

The internet and digital technologies can

also be leveraged to deliver instructional

coaching to teachers through tools such

as video calls with external observers.

Analysis of teacher coaching programmes

conducted by researchers Matthew

Kraft and David Blazar

found that

they can signiﬁcantly improve teaching

quality by as much as the dierence in

eectiveness between a teacher with

zero years of experience and a teacher

with ﬁve–ten years of experience. This

improvement in quality was also found

to be reﬂected in student achievement.

 Fulton, K. and Riel, M. (1999), “Collaborative Online Continuing Education: Professional Development Through Learning Communities”.

https://www.edutopia.org/professional-development-through-learning-communities

 See Will, M. (2018), “Instructional Coaching Works, Says a New Analysis. But There’s a Catch”.

https://www.edweek.org/leadership/instructional-coaching-works-says-a-new-analysis-but-theres-a-catch/2018/07

 Kho, K. et al (2018), “Impact of Internet Access on Student Learning in Peruvian Schools”. Michigan State University, International Food Policy

Research Institute. http://econ.msu.edu/repec/wp/Draft04-08-18.pdf

The first and foremost benefit

of school connectivity is

access to education resources.

With the availability of

connectivity, you can think

about decoupling great

education from the specific

geography where it is

consumed. You can, in effect,

re-engineer the production

function of education.”

Macke Raymond, Director of

CREDO at Stanford University

Time to impact

While school connectivity has been shown to improve learning outcomes for students,

in many cases these impacts are not immediate. Kho et al. (2018)

conducted a study

on the impacts of internet access in schools in Peru between 2007 and 2017, comparing

schools with internet access with those that either had no access or that had obtained it at

a later date. In the ﬁrst 18 months, they found that schools with internet access reported

only moderately higher performance of students on standardised maths tests of between

0.04 and 0.08 standard deviations. However, with each subsequent year, the divergence

between students with and without internet access grew increasingly pronounced.

The growing impact of school connectivity was attributed to a number of factors.

Among these, one of the main drivers was the hiring of teachers over time who were

trained in using computers and the internet, and who could therefore more eectively

integrate digital tools into their teaching. It was found that schools were more likely

to have a computer-trained teacher by 2.1 percentage points up to one year after

connecting to the internet, and by 9.6 percentage points up to ﬁve years later.

Connecting learners

Narrowing the educational divide

• Improving digital literacy. Access to internet

connectivity and digital learning from an

early age can help develop important lifelong

skills in digital literacy. In the coming years,

emerging ﬁelds such as blockchain, big data,

machine learning and artiﬁcial intelligence are

likely to be more accessible to individuals with

digital literacy skills, further compounding

the inﬂuence of the internet. As such, digital

literacy skills are becoming increasingly

important in today’s world—a 2017 report by

the House of Lords in the United Kingdom

noted: “Digital literacy should be the fourth

pillar of a child’s education alongside reading,

writing and mathematics and be resourced

and taught accordingly.”

A joint study

conducted by UNICEF and the London

School of Economics compared data on

internet use among 15,000 schoolchildren

across 11 countries, ﬁnding that online

engagement is crucial for building digital

skills.

These skills extend beyond educational

beneﬁts, also helping children develop

important social networks, encouraging

them to engage in civic and political

activity, and providing a creative outlet.

• Improving employability. Improved

educational outcomes and the development

of digital literacy skills resulting from increased

access to internet connectivity and digital

learning can also improve employability

opportunities for schoolchildren. In the longer

term, this is associated with a strong positive

impact on income levels and health outcomes

for the individual.

A study by the Quello

Center at Michigan State University in the

United States found that students with limited

internet access have lower digital skills and,

as a result, are 19% less likely to be interested

in a career related to science, technology,

engineering and maths (STEM) subjects.

These careers typically have a higher entry-

level salary than many other career choices,

impacting not only the options available to

individuals but also their earning potential.

 See Promethean (2018), “Digital literacy in the classroom. How important is it?”. https://resourced.prometheanworld.com/digital-literacy-classroom-important/

 UNICEF (2019), “Growing up in a connected world”. https://www.unicef-irc.org/publications/pdf/GKO%20Summary%20Report.pdf

 Deloitte (2014), “Value of connectivity: Economic and social benefits of expanding internet access”. https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/

Deloitte/ie/Documents/TechnologyMediaCommunications/2014_uk_tmt_value_of_connectivity_deloitte_ireland.pdf

 Quello Centre, Michigan State University (2020), “Broadband and student performance gaps”.

https://quello.msu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Broadband_Gap_Quello_Report_MSU.pdf

In principle, integrating

internet use in education

should improve student

learning. But in practice, there

could be some resistance

particularly from teachers who

may see it as a challenge to

their usual teaching process—

it could lead to delays in the

setting-up of devices, potential

technical problems with

connectivity and a source of

distraction with challenges in

having all students engaged

and focused throughout the

lesson. The sustainability

of providing the internet

to schools could also be a

hindrance in terms of paying

for the monthly subscription.”

Eric Kimenyi, Teacher Training

Program Manager at the African

Institute of Mathematical Sciences

Connecting learners

Narrowing the educational divide

While there are a number of beneﬁts of

school connectivity and digital learning, it

would be imprudent to ignore the potential

downsides and risks.

Indeed, the use of

technology in classrooms can enable better

learning, but at the same time it can create a

distraction—in fact, some teachers see it as

“overpriced distractions rather than useful

teaching tools”.

Other negative impacts of

internet use in education include creating a

distortionary eect on social interactions and

isolating individuals when using technologies.

Even more worrying are concerns around the

vulnerability of children to cybercrime. A recent

INTERPOL report noted a marked rise in online

child exploitation during the pandemic driven

by increased use of the internet.

However, the unintended negative eects of

school connectivity and access to digital tools

do not preclude widespread adoption—in

fact, it is generally agreed that the beneﬁts

far outweigh the costs.

Instead, what the

negative eects highlight is the need to

monitor and manage the use of the internet

in education in order to maximise its beneﬁts

rather than to eliminate its use altogether.

 “12 Negative Effects of Technology in Education”. https://inspirationfeed.com/negative-effects-of-technology-in-education/

 Lynch, M. (2016), “The dark side of educational technology”. https://www.theedadvocate.org/dark-side-educational-technology/

 Alhumaid, K. (2019), “Four Ways Technology Has Negatively Changed Education”. Journal of Educational and Social Research, 9(4):10-20.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/336969538_Four_Ways_Technology_Has_Negatively_Changed_Education

 INTERPOL (2020), “INTERPOL report highlights impact of COVID-19 on child sexual abuse”.

https://www.interpol.int/en/News-and-Events/News/2020/INTERPOL-report-highlights-impact-of-COVID-19-on-child-sexual-abuse

 Olaore, I. (2014), “The Impacts (Positive and Negative) of ICT on Education in Nigeria”, Developing Country Studies, ISSN 2224-607X, Vol.4, No.23,

2014. https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/234682114.pdf

Connecting learners

Narrowing the educational divide

Contributing to growth

The relationship between school internet connectivity and economic growth

Low income

GDP per capita, US $ (2017)

School internet connectivity (Index score 1-7; 7=best)

Lower middle income Upper middle income High income

10,000

20,000

30,000

40,000

50,000

60,000

70,000

80,000

90,000

100,000

110,000

0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0 3.5 4.0 4.5 5.0 5.5 6.0 6.5

4. Beyond the individual: The socioeconomic

impacts of school connectivity and access to

digital learning

School connectivity, learning

outcomes and economic performance

In addition to the direct beneﬁts that improved

school connectivity can bring to each individual

child, these beneﬁts can have larger multiplier

eects on the wider community and the

economy as a whole. Data demonstrates

a clear negative correlation between the

percentage of children and young people

below the age of 25 without access to the

internet and the Gross National Income

(GNI) per capita of a nation—in other words,

countries with limited access to the internet

for young people also typically tend to have

lower levels of economic development.

Using

cross-sectional country-level data in the chart

below, we can see a clear relationship between

internet access in schools

and economic

development

—countries with higher levels of

school connectivity typically also display higher

levels of GDP per person. While it is likely that

limited internet access in school is reﬂective

of other inherent economic challenges which

constrain development—and hence that the

observed correlation is not uniquely the result

of poor school connectivity—it is clear from the

evidence that it plays a contributing role.

Contributing to growth

The relationship between school internet connectivity and economic growth

Source: EIU, World Economic Forum Global Competitiveness Index (2017)

 UNICEF (2020), “How many children and young people have internet access at home?”. https://www.itu.int/en/ITU-D/Statistics/Documents/

publications/UNICEF/How-many-children-and-young-people-have-internet-access-at-home-2020_v2final.pdf

 Measured using the ‘Internet Access in School’ sub-indicator from the World Economic Forum Global Competitiveness Index across 137 countries

 Measured based on GDP per capita

Connecting learners

Narrowing the educational divide

In accordance with neoclassical growth theory,

GDP growth can be generated through either

of the following means:

76,77

• An increase in the quantity of inputs used in

production (e.g. more investment in capital, a

bigger workforce, etc.); or,

• An increase in the quality of inputs used in

production (e.g. more eective investment

in capital, a more skilled and educated

workforce, etc.), which results in greater

output returns per each unit of input, also

known as productivity. This enables economic

growth driven by technological progress.

In the context of improved school

connectivity and access to digital learning,

the wider economic impacts arise partly

as a result of the indirect beneﬁts from

the enhanced educational outcomes of

each individual child, and the employment

opportunities that these create. This can

ﬂow through a number of channels which

feed through the labour market, namely

improvements in the quantity and quality of

labour, facilitating technological progress.

• Improvements in labour quantity.

- High-skilled job creation. The digital skills

developed through internet access at

schools from an early age and the impacts

on educational outcomes can elevate the

CVs of individuals entering the job market.

This creates direct beneﬁts to individuals

from increased employment opportunities.

Beyond the individual beneﬁts, however,

from a societal perspective, the increased

supply of job market entrants with digital

skills and academic excellence can also

indirectly stimulate economic activity.

The access to a highly skilled labour force

can provide the necessary impetus to

develop new technology-driven industries,

particularly in developing countries. The city

of Bangalore, for example, has established

itself as the Silicon Valley of India by building

a digitally adept labour force that has

allowed it to transition over time from low-

skilled to high-skilled employment.

- Higher income levels. As average skill

levels in the labour force increase,

income levels follow as a reward to

individuals for having accumulated

more skills. Higher wages lead to more

consumer spending, thus stimulating the

economy and bolstering job creation.

Higher income levels can be a consequence

of the use of digital technologies in

education, hence supporting economic

growth. In Mexico, the rollout of

telesecundarias (middle schools with

lessons broadcast via satellite TV)

had a long-term inﬂuence on the

educational and employment trajectory

of their graduates. Each additional year

of education provided by the policy

increased average income by nearly 18%.

 OECD (2001), “Measuring productivity”. https://www.oecd.org/sdd/productivity-stats/2352458.pdf

 Popa, F. (2014), “Elements of the neoclassical growth theory”.

 Deloitte (2014), “Value of connectivity: Economic and social benefits of expanding internet access”. https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/

Deloitte/ie/Documents/TechnologyMediaCommunications/2014_uk_tmt_value_of_connectivity_deloitte_ireland.pdf

 Ganimian, A. et al. (2020), “Realising the promise: How can education technology improve learning for all”. The Brookings Institution, Center for

Universal Education. https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/edtech_playbook_full_v2.pdf

When you enhance school internet

connectivity and build digital skills

at all levels, you are preparing

the country for the future.

Mario Franco, Chairperson of Millenium@EDU

Connecting learners

Narrowing the educational divide

• Improvements in labour quality.

- Productivity growth. Access to a higher-

skilled workforce can drive improvements

in labour productivity, thus stimulating

economic growth. Labour productivity

estimates the level of output produced for

every unit of labour used in the production

process. While economic growth can be

achieved in the short run by increasing the

quantity of inputs, it is widely recognised

that resource constraints make input-driven

growth unsustainable in the long run. For

medium-to-long-term GDP growth, an

economy requires productivity.

By improving the quality of new entrants

into the labour market, school connectivity

and access to digital learning can support

greater productivity and economic growth

in the long term. Evidence shows that

an increase in the level of education of

the workforce is associated with greater

productivity. A study in the United

States, for example, ﬁnds that changes

in educational attainment across states

between 1979 and 2012 were positively

correlated with growth in productivity.

Other studies have built on this to show a

causal relationship between educational

attainment, productivity and economic

growth. A study conducted in Mauritius

using data from 1990 to 2006 found that

human capital development through

investment in education increases

productivity which contributes to

economic growth.

Expansion of

access to internet connectivity and

digital learning tools in schools is a

form of investment in education which,

evidence shows, can improve educational

outcomes and hence drive economic

growth through a similar channel.

- Improved digital skills. In addition to

enhancing productivity growth and

economic growth through educational

attainment, internet connectivity can spur

growth by providing future labour market

participants with valuable digital skills.

A study in the United States found that

productivity loss due to low digital and

technological skills costs the US economy

$1.3 trillion each year.

Hence, digital

skills development—through, for example,

improving school connectivity—could

support productivity and economic growth.

In the long-run, students who have

acquired digital skills through

having internet access in their

education are well equipped to

be able to take advantage of, and

use, these 21st century skills

attained to be able to play a role

in the growth and development

of entrepreneurial creativity

especially in a country like ours

(Rwanda), which continues

to establish such an enabling

environment and policies.

Eric Kimenyi, Teacher Training Program

Manager at the African Institute of

Mathematical Sciences

 Parliament of Australia, ‘Economic productivity report’.

 Banerjee, A. et al. (2016), “Mainstreaming an Effective Intervention: Evidence from Randomized Evaluations of “Teaching at the Right Level” in India”.

NBER Working Paper Series, Working Paper 22746. https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w22746/w22746.pdf

 Odit, M. et al (2010), “The Impact Of Education On Economic Growth: The Case Of Mauritius”. International Business & Economics Research Journal,

Volume 9, Number 8. https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/268106481.pdf

 The University of Alabama at Birmingham, “The IT skills gap”. https://businessdegrees.uab.edu/blog/the-it-skills-gap/

Connecting learners

Narrowing the educational divide

Economic-level beneﬁts from school connectivity

and improved educational quality

Pathway from improved connectivity to improved

educational outcomes to higher GDP

Economic-level beneﬁts from school connectivity and improved educational quality

Pathway from improved connectivity to improved educational outcomes to higher GDP

Gross Domestic Product (GDP)

The quantity of inputs used in

production (labour and capital)

contributes to total output

The quality of inputs used in

production (labour and capital)

drives productivity and

contributes to total output

Contributes to eciency and

output, measured by factors

including levels of R&D

investment, national institutions;

trade levels, etc.

Increased access to

highly skilled

employees in the

labour force

Increased demand

for goods and

services, requiring

labour force

expansion

Increased labour

productivity from

improved skills and

education

Enablement of

technological

development

through increased

digital acumen in

the labour force

Direct beneﬁts (beneﬁts to individual) Indirect beneﬁts (wider socioeconomic beneﬁts)

Input quantity Input quality Technological progress

Improved income

Improved employability

Improved education performance

Improved opportunities in

secondary/tertiary education

Improved quality

of education

Improved access

to resources

Improved digital

literacy skills

Improved

quality of

life

Improved school internet connectivity

Source: EIU

Connecting learners

Narrowing the educational divide

Enabling community development

Although one of the major ways in which

enhanced school connectivity and the use of

digital learning tools can stimulate economic

growth is through the educational channel,

school connectivity can also bring wider

community-level beneﬁts outside of the sphere

of education. There is a view in public policy

research which is rapidly gaining support

that education and community development

are inextricably linked.

The International

Telecommunication Union’s (ITU’s) Connect

a School, Connect a Community initiative,

for example, is designed to leverage internet

connectivity in schools in order to promote

internet connectivity in communities by

using schools as ICT (information and

communications technology) centres and

extending the digital facilities to members of

the community.

Not only does improved education—through

internet connectivity or alternative means—

allow for communities to develop over the long

term as knowledge and skill levels increase,

there are more immediate beneﬁts:

• Making communities more attractive.

High-quality schools and education systems

can incentivise families to relocate. The

increased demand for housing in certain

communities has direct impacts on house

prices and land values.

A study on the

eects of the No Child Left Behind Act,

implemented in 2001 in Ohio to improve

school ratings, found that a one standard

deviation change in variables related to

school quality, such as teacher salary and

fourth grade pass rates in mathematics, was

associated with a 3–5% increase in house

prices in the area.

• Connecting communities. School

connectivity can also enable community-

wide connectivity. Typically, schools are

the beneﬁciaries of investment in digital

infrastructure,

but once the infrastructure

is built, connectivity can then be delivered

to the surrounding community. Schools,

therefore, create the demand required to

make investment in digital infrastructure

worthwhile and proﬁtable for private players.

In rural communities with few households

 Gallagher, M. and Burnstein, E. (2014), “The intersecting worlds of education and community development policy”.

https://www.urban.org/urban-wire/intersecting-worlds-education-and-community-development-policy

 International Telecommunication Union, “Connect a school, connect a community”. https://www.itu.int/en/ITU-D/Digital-Inclusion/Youth-and-

Children/Pages/CSCC.aspx

 Gallagher, M. and Burnstein, E. (2014), “The intersecting worlds of education and community development policy”.

https://www.urban.org/urban-wire/intersecting-worlds-education-and-community-development-policy

 Seo, Y. and Simons, R. (2009), “The effect of school quality on residential sales price”, JRER Vol. 31, No. 3, 2009.

https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/6935555.pdf

 Lee, N. (2020), “Bridging digital divides between schools and communities”. https://www.brookings.edu/research/bridging-digital-divides-between-

schools-and-communities/

 Battisti, D. (2002), “Demand aggregation to encourage infrastructure rollout to under-served regions”, Public Sector Broadband Procurement

Workshop, WPIE/OECD, Paris, 4 December 2002. https://www.oecd.org/sti/ieconomy/2491219.pdf

Building connectivity to each

school provides a laser focus

that gives us the means to

achieve universal connectivity.

The school serves as the node

that provides connectivity to

the surrounding community.

Alex Wong, International Telecommunication

Union (ITU), Chief, Special Initiatives, and ITU

Giga Co-Lead

Connecting learners

Narrowing the educational divide

and businesses to support demand for

connectivity, school connectivity can play

a major role in connecting the community.

A study conducted in Italy demonstrated

the beneﬁts of increased public sector

demand for connectivity in enabling

wider access to internet bandwidth and

reducing prices.

Research conducted

by UNICEF through the Giga initiative has

also identiﬁed a link between school and

community connectivity—investment

in Sierra Leone and Niger to connect all

schools is also expected to provide internet

access to 3 million and 7.2 million people,

respectively, in their local communities.

• Allowing businesses to grow. As

communities are connected, digital

doors are opened, giving rise to a wide

range of opportunities for community

development. By enabling the growth of

digital marketplaces to connect buyers and

sellers, for example, internet connectivity

in communities can expand business

operations and support community

development, and ultimately economic

growth. A 2020 report by the Internet

Society on the impact of internet access in

indigenous communities in North America

found signiﬁcant value for businesses across

a range of industries, making business

processes more ecient and streamlined

and providing access to a wider range of

suppliers and consumers.

Rural businesses,

for example, can perform ﬁnancial

transactions more safely and eciently

through the internet instead of relying on

physical deposits of cheques and cash.

• Narrowing the digital divide for children.

Increased community connectivity can

create a circular eect, further enhancing

educational quality by providing students

with access to the internet, not only through

schools but also in the home or other

community areas such as libraries. While

school connectivity can go part of the way

in closing the digital divide, community

connectivity goes a step further in closing the

homework gap—the gap in ability of students

with and without access to the internet

outside of school to complete assignments

and engage in independent learning.

 UNICEF (2021), “Connecting the dots: Impact outlook 2021”. https://gigaconnect.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Connecting-the-Dots-Giga-

Impact-Outlook-2021_20p-1.pdf

 Hudson, H. (2020), “The impact of internet access in indigenous communities in Canada and the United States: An overview of findings and

guidelines for research”, Internet Society.

 Lee, N. (2020), “Bridging digital divides between schools and communities”. https://www.brookings.edu/research/bridging-digital-divides-between-

schools-and-communities/

Connecting learners

Narrowing the educational divide

Economic-level beneﬁts from school

connectivity and digital learning

Pathway from improved connectivity to higher GDP

Improved school internet connectivity

Gross Domestic Product (GDP)

The quantity of inputs used in

production (labour and capital)

contributes to total output

The quality of inputs used in

production (labour and capital)

drives productivity and

contributes to total output

Contributes to eciency and

output, measured by factors

including levels of R&D

investment, national institutions;

trade levels, etc.

Improved

school internet

connectivity

facilitates wider

community

connectivity

Improved

school internet

connectivity

facilitates wider

community

connectivity

Increased access to

highly skilled

employees in the

labour force

Increased demand

for goods and

services, requiring

labour force

expansion

Increased labour

productivity from

improved skills and

education

Enablement of

technological

development

through increased

digital acumen in

the labour force

Input quantity Input quality Technological progress

Improved quality

of education

Improved access

to resources

Improved digital

literacy skills

Improved income

Improved employability

Improved education performance

Improved

quality of

life

Improved opportunities in

secondary/tertiary education

Direct beneﬁts (beneﬁts to individual) Indirect beneﬁts (wider socioeconomic beneﬁts)

Economic-level beneﬁts from school connectivity

Pathway from improved connectivity to higher GDP

Source: EIU

Connecting learners

Narrowing the educational divide

Beyond economic impacts

In addition to the link to economic

growth, evidence from literature also

ﬁnds a link between improved school

connectivity and access to digital learning

and broader social outcomes.

Improved education outcomes as a result

of school connectivity and access to digital

learning can support improved health

outcomes, survival rates and fertility rates,

among other factors.

The improved economic

opportunities can help to pull individuals

and families out of poverty and hunger in

developing countries, bringing with them

signiﬁcant health beneﬁts and reducing

healthcare costs.

Furthermore, the beneﬁts of improved digital

literacy as a result of school connectivity and

access to digital learning can extend beyond

impacts on economic growth through the

labour market. Enhanced digital literacy

could give rise to a generation of savvier

consumers, able to engage with digital

services and understand the implications

of their consumption patterns. This could

allow for a digital transformation of the

community and economy—for example,

enabling e-government and other digital

services which reduce transaction costs and

times. It could also support broader public

policy goals towards, for example, improved

environmental sustainability.

To build on the reﬂection of Janine Händel,

CEO of the Roger Federer Foundation, who

remarked, “Education is not a goal in itself;

it is a tool to attain other goals,”

school

connectivity is not a goal in itself; it is a tool to

attain other goals.

 Grant, C. (2017), “The contribution of education to economic growth”. Institute of Development Studies. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/

media/5b9b87f340f0b67896977bae/K4D_HDR_The_Contribution_of_Education_to_Economic_Growth_Final.pdf

 See “Education: The multiplier effect”. https://channels.ft.com/thevalueofknowledge/infographic/

By increasing the digital literacy of the population, you can drive benefits

across sectors. Take, for example, the energy sector. Before, consumers

only had an ‘on/off’ choice in their consumption. Now, with digital

meters, it’s becoming more and more complex if a person wishes to use

energy in an efficient way. To make the transition towards sustainable

energy consumption, you need people to support the policies. And

people will only support the policies if they understand how to do

so. Ultimately, you need digital literacy to modernise all markets.

Mario Franco, Chairperson of Millenium@EDU

Connecting learners

Narrowing the educational divide

5. What’s to gain from connecting schools?

Measuring the gains from improved

school connectivity

From improving the outcomes for children

in education, to contributing to the overall

socioeconomic development of a nation,

the beneﬁts of investing in the education

of children through improving access

to connectivity can be immense. In this

section, we seek to quantify the potential

economic gains from increased levels of

school connectivity across a selection of

representative countries: Brazil, El Salvador,

Kyrgyzstan, Niger and Sierra Leone. In these

countries, access to the internet in schools falls

below average levels, so there is signiﬁcant

scope for gains from improving access. In

other countries, however, the challenge is

not in terms of the availability of access but

in the quality of that access and where it is

provided (e.g. schools vs homes). The United

States provides an example and we explore

the potential gains not from improving

connectivity, which is already high, but from

improving the speed of connectivity.

Across the ﬁrst set of countries in our

analysis (Brazil, El Salvador, Kyrgyzstan,

Niger and Sierra Leone), we assess

current levels of school connectivity,

and estimate the potential gains from

matching these levels with those observed

in three selected benchmark countries:

• Finland, which ranks third in the world

on the World Economic Forum’s Global

Competitiveness Index in terms of the quality

of its education system (after Switzerland and

Singapore), and also has among the highest

levels of access to the internet in schools.

• Rwanda, which scores the highest

across developing countries in terms

of both internet access in schools and

the quality of the education system

based on the World Economic Forum’s

Global Competitiveness Index.

• South Korea, which scores the highest

on the EIU’s Inclusive Internet Index

(2020) in terms of its availability of

internet connectivity nationally.

We use these benchmark countries not

speciﬁcally as benchmarks for how to improve

school connectivity, but for what the potential

gains on oer are to other countries if they are

able to achieve these levels of connectivity.

Our ﬁndings are founded in econometric

analysis which uses data across 105 countries

over time to quantify the relationships between

school connectivity, education outcomes for

students and economic growth. This allows us to

capture both the economic impacts of improved

school connectivity through educational gains

for children, and the wider beneﬁts through

community development and other channels.

 World Economic Forum (2020), “Global Competitiveness Report Special Edition 2020: How Countries are Performing on the Road to Recovery”.

https://www.weforum.org/reports/the-global-competitiveness-report-2020

 The Economist Intelligence Unit (2020), “The Inclusive Internet Index 2020”. https://theinclusiveinternet.eiu.com/assets/external/downloads/3i-

executive-summary.pdf

Connecting learners

Narrowing the educational divide

The pathways through which school

connectivity can stimulate socioeconomic

development are complex and interlinked. By

assessing each pathway individually, there is a

risk of: (a) double-counting some of the impacts

which operate in an interrelated way; and/or (b)

omitting speciﬁc channels of impact. In order to

overcome this challenge, our approach assesses

the overall impact of school connectivity on

economic growth (reﬂected in GDP) without

disaggregating the dierent channels through

which this is derived. The relationships assessed

through the model include:

1. The relationship between school

connectivity and learning outcomes,

to identify the individual-level

impacts of school connectivity.

2. The relationship between learning outcomes

and economic growth, which, combined

with the relationship between school

connectivity and learning outcomes,

provides an assessment of the impact

of school connectivity on GDP through

improvements in learning outcomes.

3. The relationship between school

connectivity and economic growth, to

assess all channels through which school

connectivity can stimulate economic

growth including, but also beyond,

education (for example, through enabling

community-level connectivity).

Connecting learners

Narrowing the educational divide

Model framework

Simplifying complex pathways to assess the impact of school connectivity

Improved income

Improved employability

Improved education performance

Improved opportunities in

secondary/tertiary education

Improved

quality of

life

Improved school internet connectivity

Gross Domestic Product (GDP)

The quantity of inputs used in

production (labour and capital)

contributes to total output

The quality of inputs used in

production (labour and capital)

drives productivity and

contributes to total output

Contributes to eciency and

output, measured by factors

including levels of R&D

investment, national institutions;

trade levels, etc.

Improved quality of education Improved access to resources Improved digital literacy skills

Increased access to

highly skilled

employees in the

labour force

Increased demand

for goods and

services, requiring

labour force

expansion

Increased labour

productivity from

improved skills and

education

Enablement of

technological

development

through increased

digital acumen in

the labour force

Direct beneﬁts (beneﬁts to individual) Indirect beneﬁts (wider socioeconomic beneﬁts) Channels captured through EIU model

Input quantity Input quality Technological progress

Model framework

Simplifying complex pathways to assess the impact of school connectivity

Source: EIU

Connecting learners

Narrowing the educational divide

As noted, in many countries the challenge

is less in terms of access per se and more in

terms of the quality of access. In the United

States, 99% of schools are connected to ﬁbre

infrastructure to access the internet, but

connection speeds vary substantially across

states.

To assess the impact of improving not

only access but also the quality of this access,

we have developed a second series of models

to investigate the relationship between the

speed of connectivity available to students

and economic outcomes. The analysis

employs state-level data from the United

States over time. Using the ﬁndings from the

model, we assess the potential economic

gains from improving the speed of school

internet connectivity across the country.

A more detailed discussion of the methodology

is provided in Appendix B of this report.

 EducationSuperHighway (2019). https://stateofthestates.educationsuperhighway.org/?postalCd=AL#state

Connecting learners

Narrowing the educational divide

Limitations of quantifying the impact of connectivity

The analysis presented in this report uses

a novel approach to estimate the potential

gains from improving access to internet

connectivity in schools. However, in using

and interpreting the results, there are

a number of caveats and limitations:

• Data availability: A key limitation of

the regression analysis is the lack of

data availability. As a result, in many

cases, imperfect proxy indicators

are used to assess the relationships

being tested. Furthermore, data gaps

need to be ﬁlled using interpolation

techniques. These adjustments introduce

a degree of measurement error in the

analysis and can bias the outputs of

the regression models. Future analysis

could establish new data and measures

of school connectivity to support

further research and analysis and to

measure the progress of countries in

improving their levels of connectivity.

• Short-term vs long-term impacts: Given

the limited availability of historical data,

the models primarily capture the short-

term impacts associated with improved

school connectivity. It is reasonable

to assume that while beneﬁts to

individual students in terms of improving

school performance may be relatively

immediate, socioeconomic impacts are

likely to arise with a substantial time lag.

The socioeconomic impacts could be

underestimated by the model as a result.

• Robustness of the model: A number

of challenges can arise in specifying

econometric regression models which

can aect their ability to discern a truly

causal relationship between school

connectivity and economic outcomes.

Despite this, the ﬁndings suggest some

degree of correlation and co-movement.

• Assessing transmission mechanisms:

While the analysis assesses the

overall relationship between

school connectivity and economic

outcomes, it does not identify the

speciﬁc channels through which this

relationship arises. Future research

could use experimental approaches

and survey techniques to track the

implications of school connectivity at

an individual level, and then assess how

these translate into wider beneﬁts.

• Assessing macroeconomic impacts:

The analysis uses an econometric

approach to assess the macroeconomic

impacts associated with improved

school connectivity which assumes that

a change in connectivity will have the

same impact on GDP growth across all

countries. In reality, country-speciﬁc

factors will aect the extent to which

connectivity can be translated into

economic gains. General equilibrium

models could be explored in the future

to account for country-speciﬁc nuances.

Connecting learners

Narrowing the educational divide

Improving access to

school connectivity

By investigating cross-country data on

school connectivity and economic outcomes,

our analysis estimates the following:

• A 1% increase in school connectivity

with

increased access to, and use of, the internet

in schools can improve learning outcomes for

students by 0.06%.

• A 1% increase in the learning

outcomes for students can increase

GDP per capita by 0.19%

• A 1% increase in school connectivity can

increase GDP per capita overall by 0.11%

Overall, we ﬁnd that a 1% improvement

in a country’s performance on the World

Economic Forum Internet Access in Schools

Index (see box below) can increase GDP per

capita by 0.11%. Of these total gains, 11.5%

are associated with improvements in learning

outcomes for children which drive wider

economic beneﬁts, while the remaining 88.5%

of the gains are associated with broader

channels of impact from improved school

connectivity including, for example, improved

community connectivity. Given the short-term

nature of the modelling exercise, the model

does not fully capture the long-term impacts

of improved school connectivity on GDP,

hence the GDP impacts—particularly through

improved learning outcomes which are likely to

take time to translate into economic beneﬁts—

are expected to be underestimated. The results

should, therefore, be interpreted as the short-

term impacts of improving school connectivity.

 Measured based on the World Economic Forum Internet Access in Schools index, which assesses the extent to which the internet is

used in education across countries based on survey data. The data can be accessed at: https://tcdata360.worldbank.org/indicators/

hbfab20aa?indicator=571&viz=line_chart&years=2007,2017

 Measured based on the World Bank’s estimation of adjusted years of schooling which adjusts the average expected years in schooling in each

country to account for the quality of the education provided reflected in student test scores. The data can be accessed at:

https://databank.worldbank.org/source/human-capital-index#

World Economic Forum: Internet Access in Schools Index

Our measure of school connectivity

is based on data published by the

World Economic Forum. Its Global

Competitiveness Index provides a cross-

country assessment of progress towards

developing long-term competitiveness

through productivity growth. It scores

countries against 12 key pillars of

competitiveness, including one pillar

focused on education and training.

Within the education pillar, the

assessment covers a range of

indicators to provide a comprehensive

view of the quality of education in

a given country. This includes, for

example, the enrolment rate across

educational levels, sta training, and

access to the internet in schools.

The Internet Access to Schools indicator

scores countries on a scale from 1 to 7 (7

being the highest) based on an executive

opinion survey response to the following

question: “In your country, to what extent

is the Internet used in schools for learning

purposes?” The overall score is based on

the average response in each country

out of a sample of over 14,000 business

executives in more than 148 countries.

Connecting learners

Narrowing the educational divide

Based on the identiﬁed relationship

between school connectivity and GDP

per capita, through improved learning

outcomes and other factors, we can assess

the potential gains from improving school

connectivity levels. In each of our key

countries of assessment, current levels of

school connectivity fall substantially below

international benchmarks in both developed

and developing countries. Niger, for example,

scores only 2.1 out of 7 on the World

Economic Forum Internet Access in School

Index, while Rwanda—the highest-performing

developing country—scores 4.5. As a result,

increasing school connectivity levels in Niger

could bring individual and economic gains.

Quantifying the gains

Estimated relationship between improved

school connectivity and individual-

level and economy-wide outcomes

How do they compare?

School connectivity across key and reference markets (Index score 1-7; 7=best)

Source: EIU analysis

Source: World Economic Forum Global Competitiveness Index; EIU analysis

100

Quantifying the gains

Estimated impacts from improving school connectivity

School internet

connectivity

Learning-adjusted years

of schooling

GDP per capita

+10.0%

+0.6%

+1.1%

Individual-level

beneﬁts

Economy-wide

beneﬁts

Impacts

How do they compare?

School connectivity across key and reference markets (Index score 1-7; 7=best)

2.1

2.6

3.2

3.6

3.7

4.5

5.8

5.9

Niger Sierra

Leone

El Salvador Kyrgyzstan Brazil Rwanda South

Korea

Finland

Key markets Reference markets

 Note: The World Economic Forum database does not include school connectivity data on Niger. The EIU has used proxy analysis to estimate

connectivity levels in Niger using Chad as a reference country based on the similarity between the two countries in terms of their performance on

the Human Development Index and their national levels of broadband connectivity based on ITU data.

Connecting learners

Narrowing the educational divide

Across the countries in our analysis, increasing

school connectivity levels to match the

levels in reference markets can result in

improvements in the average learning-

adjusted years of schooling received by

children. This means that for the same

quantity of schooling, we can improve the

quality of schooling for children. In Niger,

where school connectivity levels score 2.1

out of 7, improving connectivity to match

Rwanda levels could increase the learning-

adjusted years of schooling from 2.7 years on

average to 2.9 years (a 7% increase). A more

ambitious increase in connectivity to match

Finland could increase learning-adjusted

years of schooling by 11% to 3.0 years. Even

countries with higher levels of connectivity

stand to gain from further improvements.

Brazil, for example, scores 3.7 out of 7 in

terms of school connectivity levels, but

could increase the learning-adjusted years

of schooling for children from 7.8 years on

average to 8.0–8.2 years (an increase of

1.3–3.8%), depending on the level of ambition.

By improving school connectivity levels,

the beneﬁts are not limited to individual

children through improvements in the

quality of education, but are spread through

society and increase overall levels of income

and well-being. Our analysis ﬁnds that in

Niger, improvements in school connectivity

under each of our scenarios could increase

GDP per capita from US$550 in 2025

by between 12–19%. In Brazil, where

connectivity levels are higher, the gains

are smaller in magnitude but still sizable,

with the potential for increasing GDP per

capita from US$11,500 in 2025 by 2–7%.

Connecting learners

Narrowing the educational divide

From school connectivity to economic gains

Gains in GDP per capita under alternative scenarios (2025)

Source: EIU analysis

From school connectivity to economic gains

Gains in GDP per capita (US $) under alternative scenarios (2025)

Baseline Scenario 1: Rwanda Scenario 2: South Korea Scenario 3: Finland

11,490

3,680

1,130

550

510

550

580

590

620

660

1,160

1,210

3,830

4,000

4,010

11,750

12,200

12,240

0 2,000 4,000 6,000 8,000 10,000 12,000 14,000

El Salvador

razil

yrgyzstan

iger

ierra Leone

From school connectivity to learning outcomes

Gains in learning-adjusted years of schooling (average years

per student) under alternative scenarios

Source: EIU analysis

From school connectivity to learning outcomes

Gains in learning-adjusted years of schooling (average years per student) under alternative scenarios

Baseline Scenario 1: Rwanda Scenario 2: South Korea Scenario 3: Finland

0 2

8.7

7.9

7.6

4.9

2.7

2.9

3.0

5.1

5.2

5.3

7.8

8.0

8.2

8.8

9.0

4 6 8 10

El Salvador

razil

yrgyzstan

iger

ierra Leone

Connecting learners

Narrowing the educational divide

Improving the quality of access

to school connectivity

In many developed countries, while schools

have access to connectivity, the quality of

access can be poor or variable. For connectivity

to be useful in the context of education it needs

to be not only available, but also of high quality.

The quality of internet connectivity can be

measured in terms of the speed of bandwidth.

In the United States, the vast majority of

schools across states are well-connected to

internet infrastructure, with the exception

of Alaska where only 62% of schools are

connected. The challenge for schools is

therefore not in providing access, but in

ensuring that access is of high quality. Here,

there is substantial variation at the state

level, with the average bandwidth available

to students ranging from approximately

200 kilobits per second (Kbps) to almost

3,000 Kbps. While above the average

international bandwidth per head of

142 Kbps, there is still signiﬁcant scope

for enhancement across all states, and

particularly in states where the average

speed is low—in 2017, the average bandwidth

per person in Luxembourg, for example,

was 8,135 Kbps according to ITU data.

101

Quantity vs quality of school connectivity

Access to school connectivity and bandwidth per student across US states, 2019

Source: EducationSuperHighway State of the States 2019

 International Telecommunication Union. https://www.itu.int/en/ITU-D/Statistics/Pages/stat/default.aspx

Quantity vs. quality of school connectivity

Access to school connectivity and bandwidth per student across US states, 2019

100

0 500 1,000

% of schools with ﬁbre infrastructure

Median bandwidth per student (kbps)

1,500 2,000 2,500 3,000 3,500

South Dakota

Maine

Wyoming

Montana

Idaho

New Hampshire

Alaska

Oklahoma

Conneticut

Maryland

North Carolina

North Dakota

Utah

Connecting learners

Narrowing the educational divide

Our regression analysis of data across

states shows that a 1% increase in the

average bandwidth (Kbps) available to

students can increase state-level GDP

per capita by 0.01%. We explore the

potential gains to US states from increasing

bandwidth under two scenarios:

• Scenario 1: National average. Increasing

bandwidth levels across all states to

match the national average of 676 Kbps

• Scenario 2: Highest available speed.

Increasing bandwidth levels to match

the highest average bandwidth currently

available to some students of 2,980 Kbps

Our analysis shows that, across the country as

a whole, total GDP in 2025 could increase by

between US$78 million (equivalent to a 0.4%

increase) from increasing average bandwidth

to the national average and US$1.1 billion

(equivalent to a 5.5% increase) from increasing

average bandwidth to the highest average

speeds currently available. Based on data

from EducationSuperHighway, North Dakota

currently oers students the highest average

broadband speeds—while the state forms

an outlier in terms of its population size and

economic make-up, it oers a benchmark for

what other states in the country could achieve

in terms of internet speed for students.

The estimated gains from improving the

speed of broadband connectivity in the

United States are only the tip of the iceberg

in terms of what could be achieved through

other measures to improve both access

and the quality of access. President Biden’s

proposed Infrastructure Bill, for example,

calls for investment of US$100 billion in

broadband connectivity,

102

which would be

expected to generate gains far in excess of the

estimated gains of up to US$1.1 billion from

improving broadband speed for students.

From bandwidth to economic gains

Gains in GDP per capita under alternative scenarios (2025)

Source: EIU analysis

aseline

cenario 1: National average

cenario 2: North Dakota

10,0000 20,000 30,000 40,000 50,000 60,000 70,000

60,780

61,020

64,150

From bandwidth to economic gains

Gains in GDP per capita under alternative scenarios, US$ (2025)

Baseline Scenario 1: National average Scenario 2: North Dakota

 https://variety.com/2021/digital/news/biden-infrastructure-plan-broadband-funding-1234941504/

Connecting learners

Narrowing the educational divide

One of the major challenges in the United

States in terms of connectivity for students

relates not to the availability, or the speed,

of connections through schools, but to the

availability of access to the internet and

digital devices at home—the “homework

gap”. While only 743 (or 1% of) schools are

yet to be connected to the internet,

103

25%

of households—particularly low-income

households in rural areas—do not have

broadband.

104

This means that children in

these households do not have access to the

internet to support learning at home through

completing homework or independent study.

At least 70% of teachers across the country

set homework which requires the use of the

internet,

105

creating a signiﬁcant disadvantage

for students without access (through

broadband or other means of connecting to

the internet such as via smartphones) and

widening the divide between them and those

students fortunate enough to have access.

Addressing the homework gap in the

United States by equalising internet access

across households could result in signiﬁcant

economic gains—and these are likely to be

signiﬁcantly higher than those estimated

from increasing broadband speed alone. The

Emergency Broadband Beneﬁt programme,

introduced by the Federal Communications

Commission, seeks to address this by making

internet services and devices more aordable

for eligible low-income households. It

oers a one-time discount of up to US$50

on broadband service, and up to $100 to

purchase a digital device such as a laptop or

computer.

106

By narrowing the digital divide

across the country, and by extending access

to communities and not just to students,

this programme, along with others, could

result in economic and social gains beyond

those to the families that directly beneﬁt.

 EducationSuperHighway (2019). https://stateofthestates.educationsuperhighway.org/?postalCd=AL#state

 Pew Research Centre (2021). https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/fact-sheet/internet-broadband/

 MIT Technology Review (2020). https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/10/13/1010243/jessica-rosenworcel-homework-gap-key-to-americas-

digital-divide/

 https://www.fcc.gov/broadbandbenefit

Connecting learners

Narrowing the educational divide

6. So, where do we go from here?

Making the potential gains a reality

While there are substantial potential gains on

oer from increasing school connectivity—both

for individuals and wider society—making

these a reality is easier said than done. First,

school connectivity levels remain low in many

parts of the world, despite the beneﬁts it can

oer. This is illustrative of barriers to increasing

connectivity—if there were no barriers, it would

beg the question: why aren’t connectivity levels

higher when they oer so many beneﬁts?

Furthermore, obtaining access to the internet

alone does not guarantee that students and

teachers will be able to translate this into

academic beneﬁts, or that these beneﬁts will

subsequently generate wider socioeconomic

beneﬁts. School connectivity is a necessary but

not the sole condition for achieving the gains.

So, what needs to happen next? Based

on interviews with experts, the EIU

identiﬁes four key priorities:

1. First and foremost, collaboration is key.

A holistic strategy—with cross-government

and private sector collaboration—is needed

to coordinate eorts across stakeholders to

overcome barriers to school connectivity

and enable its eective integration with

education systems.

2. Accessibility and aordability. Building

infrastructure to enable access to the

internet is the starting point for beginning

to realise the beneﬁts it can oer. But

having the option to access the internet

is dierent to being able to access it in a

meaningful way—poor quality and high cost

can act as roadblocks. Working together,

governments, businesses and telecom

providers should aim to continually improve

the quality and aordability of connectivity.

3. Embedding the use of the internet

and digital learning in education. Once

aordable access to school connectivity and

digital content has been achieved, they must

be eectively integrated into curricula and

education practices. This requires a change

in the approach to delivering education. It

also requires that teachers are trained to

deliver these new approaches, and that they,

and their students, have the tools to do so.

4. Protecting children online. While the

expansion of school connectivity comes

with numerous learning opportunities

for children, it also opens up new doors

for child abuse and exploitation. These

signiﬁcant risks associated with the

expansion of internet access can often

create resistance to its use in education

from parents and teachers. Enabling the

safe and secure use of the internet will be

critical in leveraging the beneﬁts it can oer.

If socio-economic development is

linked to internet connectivity then

why isn’t every government on the

planet trying to connect everybody

in their country and making it a

priority? There are many hurdles

we need to overcome to ‘take the

internet out of jail’. Changing

mindsets will be crucial and

possibly the most difficult. But there

are also physical barriers which

make no sense—regulatory barriers,

customs barriers, and others.

Jane Coffin, Senior VP for Internet Growth at

the Internet Society

Connecting learners

Narrowing the educational divide

From theory to practice

A framework for making the theoretical gains from improved school connectivity a reality

Coordinated and strategic policy

From theory to practice

A framework for making the theoretical gains from improved school connectivity a reality

Accessible and

aordable connectiviy

Integration of the

internet in education

Protecting

children online

Investment in

infrastructure

Access to electricity

High-speed broadband

connectivity

Teacher training

programmes

Access to hardware e.g.

laptops/desktops

Remaining learning

curricula

Safety in

internet usage

Regulation

Dealing with

perpetrators

Aordable pricing

Multiple access

points for children

Source: EIU

Connecting learners

Narrowing the educational divide

Bringing it all together: The Finnish experience

In 2010, Finland became the ﬁrst

country in the world to make access to

the internet a legal right,

107

rather than

a privilege reserved for those with the

means of access. The government set

itself the ambitious target of working

with telecoms providers to connect

all individuals to a 1 megabit per

second (Mbps) internet connection.

While the strategic direction set by the

government was commendable, a number

of challenges emerged over the following

decade in terms of internet access in

education. Inequalities in access to schools

across parts of the country became

evident, along with challenges in the

digitalisation of educational resources.

108

To address these challenges, the Finnish

government set a number of key priorities

during 2016–18. These focused on

reforming education curricula to fully

leverage the power of the internet,

alongside a concerted eort for capacity-

building to strengthen teachers’ skills in the

use of the internet. Some of the speciﬁc

initiatives implemented included:

109

• Teacher training programme: The

Finnish National Agency for Education

established a training programme

with 2,500 tutor teachers recruited

to train their colleagues in the use of

IT for education. Alongside peer-to-

peer training, online courses were

developed by the Ministry of Education

and Culture. A total grant of €10 million

was earmarked for the intervention.

• National curriculum reforms: The

entire curriculum for students from

pre-primary to upper secondary was

transformed to incorporate the use of ICT.

The initiative was supported by a number

of programmes and plans including:

- The New Comprehensive School

action plan provided guidance to

schools to implement new curricula,

with an emphasis placed on ﬁnding

local student-centric solutions

through experimentation

- The Diagbi project was implemented

to put in place digital technology-

based assessment, increasing

the number of school tests

administered electronically

- Linkkiapaja, an online open portal, was

established to facilitate the sharing

of learning resources in addition to

the Edustore which supplemented

free resources with commercially

provided education material

The Finnish experience and the approach

taken by the government highlight the need

to achieve not only access to connectivity

in schools, but also an integrated approach

to embedding technology in education

 BBC (2010), “Finland makes broadband a ‘legal right’”. https://www.bbc.com/news/10461048#:~:text=Finland%20has%20become%20the%20

first,legal%20right%20for%20every%20citizen.&text=The%20Finnish%20deal%20means%20that,at%20a%20minimum%201Mbps%20speed.

 European Schoolnet (2017), “Finland: Country report on ICT in education”. http://www.eun.org/documents/411753/839549/Country+Report_

Finland_2017.pdf/f106f29c-7092-44e3-9ecf-5ae24b521cab

 Ibid.

Connecting learners

Narrowing the educational divide

1. First and foremost,

collaboration is key

Good policymaking begins with eective,

strategic leadership from the top. In order

to overcome the barriers and challenges to

enhancing school connectivity and integrating

it eectively and safely within education,

leadership from the public sector plays a key

role. But the public sector working alone will

not be able to achieve connectivity for all—

eective collaboration is needed between

the public and private sectors, coordinating

across multiple stakeholders including the

government, telecoms providers, schools and

businesses to make public sector strategy

a reality. Estonia, for example, is a leading

example of a country that has moved beyond

the view that the government is solely

responsible for educational outcomes, with

numerous public–private partnerships in

place to create joint solutions and implement

technology in education. This allowed the

country to rapidly respond to school closures

during the COVID-19 pandemic.

110

Leadership from the centre of government can

set a strategy and direction of travel for the

education sector, and how technology and the

internet ﬁts into this. As noted in a recent report

published by the EdTechHub, “The overarching

emphasis should be on the education not the

technology.”

111

The onus is on ministries of

education to develop their strategic direction for

education in the country, and to identify where

technology can support. Once governments

have established the need for technology to

meet their goals for education, the natural next

question is: how? This then allows for strategic

planning around overcoming the barriers

to school connectivity and committing to

expanding connectivity for all.

Even before we think about the

provision of internet connectivity

for schools, having a national

vision is important as this lays out

the bigger picture for the nation

as a whole and hence enables the

implementers to see where it is they

want to go and how to get there

and in this case in particular, the

linkages between the education

and ICT sectors. In Rwanda, the

different National Information and

Communication Infrastructure

(NICI) plans were developed and

implemented and it is through these

NICI plans that the ‘One Laptop per

Child’ programme was initiated

and implemented. These plans and

policies allowed for further strategic

thinking on the side of policymakers

and enabled the implementers to

start to ask themselves questions

and find and propose solutions. For

example: What needs to be put in

place before laptops come in? Well,

you need electricity to begin with -

how can the Ministry of Education

work then with the Ministry of

Infrastructure to prioritise learning

institutions in the national

electricity roll-out plans?”

Eric Kimenyi, Teacher Training Program

Manager at the African Institute of

Mathematical Sciences

 Education Estonia (2021), “Three ways public-private partnerships are transforming education. Insights from Estonia”.

https://www.educationestonia.org/education-public-private-partnerships-in-estonia/

 Unwin, T. et al (2020), “Education for the most marginalised post-COVID-19: Guidance for governments on the use of digital technologies in

education”, EdTech Hub. https://edtechhub.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Education-for-the-most-marginalised-Report-Act-2-v8.pdf

Connecting learners

Narrowing the educational divide

 Mohammed Bin Rashid Smart Learning Program. https://www.moe.gov.ae/En/SmartLearning/Pages/Home.aspx

Once a strategy has been set, it can’t operate

in silos. A collaborative eort is needed

to deliver the strategy with coordination

across all parts of government and relevant

private sector players. While the ministry

of education can set a vision for education

in the country which identiﬁes the need for

internet connectivity, without working closely

with telecoms regulators and providers, it will

be unable to deliver on this vision. Similarly,

without working with the private sector both

to develop relevant online content, and to

understand business needs and the skills

required in the workforce, the connectivity

provided will not be able to drive the maximum

beneﬁts. Successful examples of technological

adoption in education are often associated

with multi-player coordination and integration

led by strong leadership from the top. In the

UAE, for example, the Mohammed Bin Rashid

Smart Learning Programme established new

ways of learning through smart devices. The

programme was led by Sheikh Mohammed

bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and

Prime Minister of the UAE, who facilitated

coordination and mobilisation across the

key players: the Ministry of Education, the

Telecommunications Regulatory Authority and

the Prime Minister’s Oce.

112

Connecting learners

Narrowing the educational divide

The case of Portugal: Coordinating across stakeholders

to integrate technology in education

113,114,115

Launched in 2007, the eEscola programme

in Portugal highlights the importance

of strong leadership, combined with

cross-stakeholder coordination, in

successfully implementing the use

of technology in education.

eEscola aimed to provide students

and teachers with aordable access to

computer equipment, along with mobile

broadband internet connectivity. By

combining both hardware and connectivity,

it addressed some of the challenges

associated with policies focusing on the

provision of digital equipment such as

personal computers without jointly oering

internet access to use the equipment.

The programme was a key component

of the Portuguese Technological Plan

for Education, driven by government

departments in collaboration with the

private sector and with the support of

the Prime Minister. A key characteristic

of eEscola was the coordination that this

leadership enabled across the Ministry

of Education, telecoms operators and

consumers. Mario Franco, Programme

Manager for eEscola noted: “There

are two main factors that led to the

success of the programme: eective

leadership and a collaborative model.”

In addition to leadership, one of the drivers

of collaboration was the fact that all

stakeholders gained from the programme.

Mr Franco reﬂected: “It was a win–win–

win across all stakeholders. For the

government, direct taxes collected from

the programme exceeded the investment

made. The telecoms operators that were

part of the programme also recuperated

their investment with an almost

instantaneous increase in demand for their

services. Finally, consumers were able to

get a laptop and internet connection at

half the price they would have otherwise.”

With over 1.7 million beneﬁciaries, eEscola

helped to bridge Portugal’s digital divide.

It also strengthened the use of technology

in education and gave rise to the adoption

of new methods of learning. Student

performance on standardised tests

improved signiﬁcantly as a result, as did the

overall competitiveness of the economy,

reﬂected in Portugal’s jump from 31st

position in the Global Competitiveness

Index (Technological Readiness) in 2010–11

to 19th position the following year.

 Franco, M. (2014), “Portugal’s eEscola earns top marks”, World Bank Group, Handshake: A quarterly journal on public-private partnerships, Issue 15,

October 2014. https://library.pppknowledgelab.org/documents/1958/download

 Trucano, M. (2012), “Around the World with Portugal’s eEscola Project and Magellan Initiative” https://blogs.worldbank.org/edutech/portugal

 Pereira, S. (2016), “The Portuguese programme ‘one laptop per child’ and its impact on families: a study on parents’ and children’s perspectives”,

Observatorio, Volume 10, No. 1, Lisboa, January 2016. http://www.scielo.mec.pt/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1646-59542016000100006

Connecting learners

Narrowing the educational divide

2. Building accessible and

aordable connectivity

Once a strategy for education has been set

by leadership and there is a recognition of

the beneﬁts of connectivity in education, the

starting point for realising these beneﬁts is

expanding connectivity to all. As stated by Tim

Unwin, UNESCO Chair in ICT4D, “If you haven’t

got basic access to the internet, you’re not even

going to get o square one.”

Expanding connectivity to all means building

the infrastructure required to allow everyone,

regardless of their geographic location, gender,

income, etc. to have access to the internet.

This means overcoming barriers to investment,

and also overcoming infrastructural challenges

related to connecting schools.

But connectivity alone is not enough. While

we might be able to overcome infrastructural

barriers to enable all schools to get connected,

if the cost is too high, connectivity for all will still

not be achieved. Similarly, we may be able to get

everyone connected to the internet, but if the

quality and speed of the connection is low, its

use is limited.

Recognising the need for available, aordable

and accessible telecoms services, Universal

Service Funds (USFs) have been established

globally to subsidise services, ﬁnanced through

contributions from telecoms providers as a

share of total revenues.

116

In the United States,

for example, the contribution of telecom

providers to the fund was approximately 5.7%

of revenues in 2000, and has climbed to 33.4%

in 2021, with a quarterly budget of US$2.4

billion.

117

While historically the focus of USFs

has been to target underserved, high-cost

areas to connect everyone to the telephone

network, their remit has broadened to cover

the digital equivalent of the telephone—

broadband services.

118

 ITU (2013), “Universal Service Fund and Digital Inclusion For All”. https://www.itu.int/en/ITU-D/Regulatory-Market/Documents/USF_final-en.pdf

 Federal Communications Commission. https://www.fcc.gov/general/contribution-factor-quarterly-filings-universal-service-fund-usf-

management-support

 Federal Communications Commission. https://www.fcc.gov/general/universal-service

Connectivity is not something that happens

once and then ends. Technology evolves and

so infrastructural needs change. This involves

recurrent costs. Investment budgets need to

account not only for building the infrastructure

in the first place, but also for maintaining

it. If not, we won’t have the resources for

maintaining it and it will ultimately collapse.”

Borhene Chakroun, UNESCO Director of the Division

for Policies and Lifelong Learning Systems

Connecting learners

Narrowing the educational divide

Building accessible and aordable

connectivity has a number of requirements:

• Investment in infrastructure. One of the

major reasons for lack of connectivity is the

lack of infrastructure. The EIU’s Inclusive

Internet Index shows that, on average, only

9.9% of households in low-income countries

have access to the internet, compared with

99.5% in rich countries.

119

This is driven by

a lack of infrastructure to obtain access in

the ﬁrst place, in addition to other barriers

to access such as aordability and speed.

Furthermore, according to the ITU, in low-

income countries, the digital divide between

rural and urban areas is signiﬁcant, with

urban access to the internet and broadband

connectivity 2.3 times as high. In Africa, for

example, only 28% of households in urban

areas had access to the internet at home in

2020, but this is still 4.5 times as high as the

share in rural areas, which stood at 6.3%.

120

Expanding infrastructure and increasing

internet coverage across low-income countries

and rural areas will require investment—and

securing this will require investors that are

able and willing to invest. Often, especially

in lower-income countries, perceptions of

political or economic risk can create a barrier.

Demonstrating the beneﬁts of increased

investment in school connectivity will play

an important role in attracting investors,

particularly those driven by moral goals.

• Access to electricity. Internet connectivity

goes hand-in-hand with access to

electricity without which access to the

internet is worthless—as the title of a

recent article published by the Alliance

for Aordable Internet puts it, “without

energy, the internet is just a black hole.”

121

According to World Bank data,

approximately 90% of the world’s

population has access to electricity.

But, as with access to connectivity, this

also varies considerably across and

within countries. In sub-Saharan Africa,

only 48% of the population has access,

dropping to 32% in rural areas.

122

 The Economist Intelligence Unit (2020a), “The Inclusive Internet Index 2020”. https://theinclusiveinternet.eiu.com/assets/external/downloads/3i-

executive-summary.pdf

 International Telecommunication Union (2020), “Measuring digital development: Facts and figures 2020”.

https://www.itu.int/en/ITU-D/Statistics/Documents/facts/FactsFigures2020.pdf

 Alliance For Affordable Internet (2017), “Without Energy, the Internet Is Just a Black Hole: Creating Energy Solutions for Information and

Communications Technology”. https://a4ai.org/without-energy-the-internet-is-just-a-black-hole-creating-energy-solutions-for-information-and-

communications-technology/

 World Bank data. Available at: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EG.ELC.ACCS.ZS

Broadband has had challenges

accessing investment capital

markets. But, when you can

demonstrate the impact - for

example, on education - then,

that provides the missing link.

It helps you attract socially

conscious investment.”

Christopher Yoo, Director at the Center for

Technology, Innovation and Competition at

the University of Pennsylvania

Connecting learners

Narrowing the educational divide

Furthermore, while the statistics may

suggest that quite a signiﬁcant share of the

global population has access to electricity,

often this is inadequate and unreliable.

Research by the World Bank ﬁnds that, in

many countries including Burundi, Ghana,

Liberia and Nigeria, more than half of

households connected to an electricity

supply have power less than 50% of the

time.

123

Brownouts and blackouts are

common, not only in developing countries

but also in the developed world.

Expanding access to reliable electricity

is therefore a necessary precondition

for expanding access to the internet.

• High-speed broadband connectivity.

In addition to internet access, internet

speed matters—low-speed internet is far

less beneﬁcial to children than high-speed

internet. Statistics on school connectivity can

therefore be misleading. In many developed

countries, school connectivity levels are high

and close to 100%, but this masks dierences

in the speed and quality of connectivity and

the extent to which it is used by students

in schools rather than for administrative

purposes. As discussed in section 5, although

99% of US schools are connected to ﬁbre

infrastructure to access the internet, the

internet speed measured by the bandwidth

per student varies substantially across states,

from between 237 Kbps to almost 2,980

Kbps, with a national average of 676 Kbps.

124

Data shows signiﬁcant variance in internet

broadband speeds at the global level.

The Speedtest Global Index, for example,

ranks Singapore the highest, with an

internet speed of 240 Mbps. At the other

end of the spectrum, the average speed

in Turkmenistan falls below 3 Mbps.

125

This highlights the need for investment

not only in providing connectivity in the

ﬁrst place, but in ensuring that it is of high

quality. Research by the Boston Consulting

Group suggests that, with investment of

US$2.1 trillion and collaboration between

the public and private sectors, access to

high-speed internet could increase globally

from 53% today to 80% by 2025.

126

• Aordable pricing. Connectivity for

all will remain a dream rather than the

reality if connectivity is available but

unaordable. High taxes on telecoms

providers are often passed on to consumers

in the form of higher prices. Research by

Deloitte for GSMA estimates that mobile

operators in 19 countries paid at least

a combined US$13.5 billion in taxes.

127

In his report, Darrell West, Director of

the Center of Technology Innovation at

Brookings, refers to these as “connectivity

taxes” which discourage internet access,

particularly in underserved areas.

128

ITU research shows that average prices for

broadband packages are very similar across

levels of development and regions. However,

due to the disparities in purchasing power,

 Blimpo, M. and Cosgrove-Davies, M. (2019), “Electricity access in Sub-Saharan Africa”, African Development Forum.

http://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/837061552325989473/pdf/135194-PUB-PUBLIC-9781464813610.pdf

 EducationSuperHighway (2019). https://stateofthestates.educationsuperhighway.org/?postalCd=AL#state

 Speedtest Global Index 2021. https://www.speedtest.net/global-index

 Rastogi, V. et al (2020), “A $2 Trillion Plan to Bring Two Billion More People into the Digital Age”. https://www.bcg.com/en-in/publications/2020/plan-

to-bring-high-speed-internet-access-to-two-billion-people

 GSMA (2014), “Mobile taxes and fees: A toolkit of principles and evidence”. https://www.gsma.com/publicpolicy/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/

GSMA2014_Report_MobileTaxesAndFees-AToolkitOfPrinciplesAndEvidence-1.pdf

 West, D. (2015), “Digital divide: Improving Internet access in the developing world through affordable services and diverse content”,

Center for Technology Innovation at Brookings. https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/West_Internet-Access.pdf

Connecting learners

Narrowing the educational divide

internet access remains too expensive

for many in the developing world.

129

2019, for example, broadband services

cost the equivalent of 0.8% of GNI per

capita in developed countries, compared

with 5.5% in developing countries, and

12.1% in the least-developed countries. In

2018, the UN Broadband Commission for

Sustainable Development set a target to

reduce costs of basic broadband services

to less than 2% of monthly GNI per capita

in developing countries by 2025.

130

Dierent stakeholders, including telecoms

operators, regulators and the government,

have a role to play in achieving fair and

aordable telecoms pricing for consumers

while at the same time advocating for

advanced internet and broadband

infrastructure.

131

Regulation of the

telecoms sector can also be eective in

increasing competition and driving cost

eciencies through market mechanisms.

In an eort to eradicate the digital divide,

the US government enacted a major subsidy

for internet infrastructure investment in

schools and libraries from 1998, which

subsidised internet spending by 20–90%

depending on school-speciﬁc criteria. The

E-rate programme, as it is known, resulted

in an increase in internet connectivity across

schools from 14% when it was launched to

almost 100% today.

132

A study conducted on

beneﬁciaries of the programme found that a

1% drop in price contributed to an increase

in demand for internet services by 0.4–1.1%.

Overall, by the ﬁnal year of the sample, there

were approximately 68% more internet-

connected classrooms per teacher than there

would have been without the subsidy.

133

• Multiple access points: COVID-19

has highlighted the need for access to

connectivity not only through schools,

but through multiple points including

homes, communities, libraries and other

public spaces. In fact, it has highlighted

the potential to further intensify the

digital divide if children are reliant only

on connectivity through their schools. As

discussed above, this is illustrated by the

homework gap in the United States which

was exposed by the pandemic—across

the country, at least 25% of children live

in a household without internet access

or access to a device to connect to the

internet, denying them the tools to fully

leverage available learning resources.

134

 International Telecommunication Union (2020), “Measuring digital development: Facts and figures 2020”.

https://www.itu.int/en/ITU-D/Statistics/Documents/facts/FactsFigures2020.pdf

 Ibid.

 International Telecommunication Union. https://www.itu.int/en/mediacentre/backgrounders/Pages/affordability.aspx

 Federal Communications Commission. https://www.fcc.gov/general/universal-service-program-schools-and-libraries-e-rate

 Goolsbee, A. and Guryan, J. (2006), “The Impact of Internet Subsidies in Public Schools”, Review of Economics and Statistics, 88(2):336-347,

February 2006. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/24096057_The_Impact_of_Internet_Subsidies_in_Public_Schools

 National Education Association (2020), “The Digital Divide and Homework Gap in Your State”.

https://www.nea.org/resource-library/digital-divide-and-homework-gap-your-state

Connecting learners

Narrowing the educational divide

3. Embedding technology

in education

Having access to the internet in schools is one

thing, but using it—and using it eectively—

in education is another thing entirely. If the

internet is not properly integrated into the

learning curricula for children, then at best

it does nothing, and at worst it creates a

distraction and hinders learning. To integrate it

properly, a number of things need to happen:

ﬁrst, teachers need to know how to use the

technology; second, there not only needs to

be the infrastructure for the internet but also

the means to access it; and third, curricula

design needs to integrate digital learning using

relevant local, localised and global content.

• Teacher training programmes. The

core purpose of the use of the internet in

education is to support and enhance the

role of teachers and educators in providing

education. If teachers are unable to use the

technology, how can they: (a) teach their

students to use it, and (b) use it to teach their

students? Therefore, the top priority should

be to “train the trainers”. Teachers need to

know how to use the internet and how it

can be used to support them in teaching

students. Perhaps more importantly, they

need to understand the value of using the

internet in order to overcome resistance.

While the COVID-19 pandemic has

accelerated the adoption of technology by

teachers by necessitating a shift to remote

learning, a formal and strategic approach to

teacher training is needed to fully embrace

the beneﬁts of the use of technology in

their practice through the adoption of

blended learning pedagogical approaches.

There’s an old myth that: if you build it, they

will come. It’s just not true. Frankly, just

building infrastructure for the internet is not

enough. Telecom providers and regulators

like to focus on building things, but they also

need to focus on helping users make better

use of their connectivity through programs

that teach digital literacy and security.”

Christopher Yoo, Director at the Center for Technology,

Innovation and Competition at the University of Pennsylvania

The lesson that I’ve learnt is

that the most important thing

is for teachers to be trained in

the appropriate and wise use

of technology. It’s bizarre that

people are kitting out schools

with access to the internet, but

not teacher training colleges.”

Tim Unwin, UNESCO Chair in ICT4D

Connecting learners

Narrowing the educational divide

Without upskilling teachers, exploiting the

use of the internet in education programmes

becomes impossible. A survey of secondary

schools in Sheeld in the United Kingdom

found that nearly 85% of teachers acquired

their internet skills informally through

self-learning or from colleagues.

135

Teacher

training colleges play a role in updating

programmes to incorporate digital

education. Evidence has demonstrated that

the beneﬁts of technology in education

increase manifold when combined with

teacher training. A study by Kho et al. (2018)

in Peru showed that connecting schools

to the internet had minimal impacts on

student performance, but once combined

with hiring teachers with computer training,

the beneﬁts improved signiﬁcantly.

136

Training teachers also means overcoming

their resistance in the use of the internet.

Resistance may be due to many reasons.

Many teachers are not convinced of the

value that the internet can bring to support

learning, or believe that traditional methods

of learning are the most eective. The fear of

loss of control of the classroom—or worse,

of replacement by technology—is also

commonly cited as a concern.

137

However,

evidence from around the world has shown

that the introduction of new technologies can

in fact enhance the role of teachers and make

them even more central. What is more likely

is, instead of being replaced by technology,

teachers who resist being replaced by

those who embrace it.

138

The Pratham

programme in India acknowledges the need

to overcome resistance from teachers,

encouraging schools to adopt ICT solutions

while at the same time training teachers to

encourage the use of the technology.

139

• Access to hardware. In addition to having

access to the internet, schools also need to

be equipped with the tools and devices to

be able to use it, such as laptops or desktop

computers. The cost of these devices,

however, often acts as a barrier. In many

countries, a luxury tax is levied on laptops

and other ICT devices which restricts access,

particularly to the lowest-income groups. In

India, for example, a goods and service tax

of 18% is levied on computers, laptops and

mobile phones,

140

while other educational

tools such as books are exempt.

141

The government plays a key policymaking

role in enhancing the aordability of

hardware to complement the expansion

of school connectivity. But cutting taxes

is politically challenging, with the need

to maintain ﬁscal revenues while still

encouraging the purchase of laptops and

telecoms devices. In 2017, the Colombian

government’s solution to this dilemma was to

remove the 16% value-added tax (VAT) levied

on low-cost handsets and laptops, and to

make up for the loss of revenue by increasing

VAT rates from 16% to 19% for certain

digital products and services, including

over-the-top services such as Uber and

Netﬂix. As a result, both the sale of devices

and the use of the internet increased.

142

 Madden, A. et al (2005), “Using the Internet in teaching: The views of practitioners (A survey of the views of secondary school teachers in Sheffield,

UK)”, British Journal of Educational Technology, 36(2):255 - 280, February 2005. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/229733149_Using_the_

Internet_in_teaching_The_views_of_practitioners_A_survey_of_the_views_of_secondary_school_teachers_in_Sheffield_UK

 Kho, K. et al. (2018), “Impact of Internet Access on Student Learning in Peruvian Schools”. Michigan State University, International Food Policy

Research Institute. http://econ.msu.edu/repec/wp/Draft04-08-18.pdf

 Abraham, O. and Reginald, A. (2016), “E-education: Changing the Mindsets of Resistant and Saboteur Teachers”, Journal of Education and Practice,

ISSN 2222-1735, Vol.7, No.16, 2016. https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/234639072.pdf

 Trucano, M. (2015), “Will technology replace teachers? No, but …”. https://blogs.worldbank.org/edutech/tech-and-teachers

 Deloitte (2014), “Value of connectivity: Economic and social benefits of expanding internet access”. https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/

Deloitte/ie/Documents/TechnologyMediaCommunications/2014_uk_tmt_value_of_connectivity_deloitte_ireland.pdf

 https://cleartax.in/s/gst-on-laptops/

 https://cleartax.in/s/exemptions-gst-goods

 Alliance For Affordable Internet. https://a4ai.org/studies/eliminating-luxury-taxation-on-ict-essentials/

Connecting learners

Narrowing the educational divide

• Reimagining learning curricula. In

addition to having teachers who are able

to use the internet, and devices on which

the internet can be accessed, learning

curricula themselves need to evolve to

incorporate the use of the internet and

digital content in the most eective way.

Evolving learning curricula requires relevant

and appropriate content which is local,

localised and global. This might mean,

for example, producing content in local

languages or which teaches the local history

and culture. A huge amount of educational

content already exists on the internet,

but much of this is contextualised for, and

produced in, the developed world where

connectivity is more advanced. Producing

home-grown localised content also provides

an opportunity to grow the local ecosystem,

bringing together technology start-ups to

build platforms and educators to produce

content.

143

Mario Franco, Programme

Manager for eEscola in Portugal, reﬂects

that, in response to the programme, the two

main publishers of textbooks in the country,

with near 90% of the market share, switched

to investing in online platforms and making

their content accessible to all students.

As well as relevant digital content, there also

needs to be a mechanism to disseminate

this content to schools, teachers and

students in an ecient manner. With

the plethora of available online content,

from Open Educational Resources (OERs)

to MOOCs and others, the burden falls

onto teachers to determine the most

appropriate. While a degree of autonomy

allowing teachers to design programmes

should be retained, ministries of education

can play a supportive role by guiding the

overall direction of education and the

relevant material for teachers to access.

 Kende, M. and Rose, K. (2015), “Promoting Local Content Hosting to Develop the Internet Ecosystem”, Internet Society.

https://www.internetsociety.org/resources/doc/2015/promoting-local-content-hosting-to-develop-the-internet-ecosystem/

We don’t want developing countries

to become consumers of the global

supermarket - it’s not just about

importing educational resources.

The local market needs to be taken

into account. We can use this as

an opportunity to nurture a local

ecosystem to develop platforms and

content tailored to the local needs.”

Borhene Chakroun, UNESCO

Director of the Division for Policies

and Lifelong Learning Systems

Every teacher is reinventing the

wheel and generating their own

material and content. We can

do better than this. We need to

reimagine the entire curriculum

in light of connectivity. It’s not

just about one-to-one replacement

of textbooks with online

material - we need to change

the way we teach entirely.”

Christopher Yoo, Director at the Center for

Technology, Innovation and Competition

at the University of Pennsylvania

Connecting learners

Narrowing the educational divide

4. Protecting children online

The expansion of internet access is

not without its risks, and in the case of

children, these risks are all the more

concerning. While the internet opens up

new opportunities for children in their

social and mental development, it sadly

also opens new doors for exploitation

and abuse. Risks to children through the

internet can take many forms, ranging

from access to harmful or inappropriate

content, to sexual abuse by individual

perpetrators, and to the manipulation of

data for commercial gain by corporates.

As use of the internet is becoming increasingly

widespread, the risks are becoming increasingly

apparent. A survey conducted in Argentina by

Global Kids Online found that at least 75% of

children surveyed noted that something had

happened to them online that was upsetting

over the past year, including racism, sexual

abuse, and impersonation.

144

Another survey

published in the journal Psychiatry Research

estimated the prevalence of Problematic

Internet Use at 14.2% for high school boys and

at 10.1% for high school girls, with associated

physical and mental health consequences.

145

In many ways, the risks to children from using

the internet creates warranted resistance

to the adoption of its use even where it is

available. To support adoption and reap the

beneﬁts, these risks therefore need to be

addressed and managed:

• Regulation. Policies to regulate online

content and the use of data can help

minimise the risks to children and the

exploitation of their data by corporates. The

EIU’s Out of the Shadows Index explores the

response to child sexual abuse and online

exploitation across a number of dimensions.

With regard to online violence it assesses

the adoption of legislation to facilitate the

detection of violence and protect children—

on this measure, 25 of the 60 countries

assessed received a score of 0, implying no

clear legislation to protect children online.

146

We need to teach children how to

protect themselves (online). And at

the same time, we need to deal with

the perpetrators of (online crimes).”

Tim Unwin, UNESCO Chair in ICT4D

 Livingstone, S. and Stoilova, M. (2016), “How do children use the internet? We asked thousands of kids around the world”.

https://theconversation.com/how-do-children-use-the-internet-we-asked-thousands-of-kids-around-the-world-67940

 Vigna-Taglianti, F. et al (2017), “Problematic internet use among high school students: Prevalence, associated factors and gender differences”,

Psychiatry Research 257 (2017) 163-171. https://sci-hub.st/10.1016/j.psychres.2017.07.039

 The Economist Intelligence Unit. https://outoftheshadows.eiu.com/

Connecting learners

Narrowing the educational divide

Where they have been applied, regulation

approaches have tended to focus on

ﬁltering or blocking of content. While this

is not entirely eective in removing all

exploitative content, it can signiﬁcantly

minimise children’s exposure.

147

Many online crimes are global in nature and

hence require global coordination in policy

approaches. This can make regulation for

child protection challenging as countries

take dierent approaches to their legislation

on child abuse. A 2012 OECD report, The

Protection of Children Online, called for

a coordinated international response to

protect children in their use of the internet.

The Agenda 2030 for Children: End Violence

Solutions Summit, held in Stockholm

in 2018, marked signs of progress with

leaders from 75 countries coming together

to focus on ending violence—including

online violence—against children.

148

• Safety in internet usage. While regulation

reduces risks to children on the internet,

it can also be counterproductive and

reduce the beneﬁts.

149

An alternative

approach to banning content entirely

is to educate children in the safe use

of the internet, and here schools and

parents can play a signiﬁcant role. This

could include teaching children who to

interact with online, when and where it

is appropriate to share information, and

how to avoid predators and scammers.

As schools become increasingly digitised,

a core component of teachers’ evolving

roles needs to involve a focus on building

digital skills. This means not only how to

use the internet, but also how to use it

safely. Particularly for more vulnerable

younger children, parents can manage the

sites visited and the amount of time spent

online.

150

However, this can also impede the

opportunities available to children, hence

striking a balance between managing risks

and maintaining opportunities is important.

For older children, a more empowering

approach could be used to equip them with

the ability to recognise and avoid online risks.

 Internet Society, “Children and the Internet”. https://www.internetsociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/bp-childrenandtheinternet-20129017-en.pdf

 The Economist Intelligence Unit. https://outoftheshadows.eiu.com/in-a-free-hour-when-our-power-of-choice-is-untrammelled-and-when-

nothing-prevents-our-being-able-to-do-what-we-like-best-every-pleasure-is-to-be-welcomed/

 Internet Society, “Children and the Internet”. https://www.internetsociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/bp-childrenandtheinternet-20129017-en.pdf

 UNICEF (2019), “Growing up in a connected world”. https://www.unicef-irc.org/publications/pdf/GKO%20Summary%20Report.pdf

Connecting learners

Narrowing the educational divide

Brazil is a developing country, the 12th largest

globally in 2020 by nominal GDP, and the 8th

largest by real GDP.

154

However, in terms of

GDP per capita, it ranks 52nd in the world,

demonstrating a large income divide within

the population. Brazil also ranked only 84th

out of 189 countries on the United Nations

Development Programme’s (UNDP’s) Human

Development Index in 2019.

155

Improvements

in education hold signiﬁcant potential to

increase equity in income and stimulate

economic growth in Brazil. Currently, Brazil

scores only 2.6 out of 7 in terms of the

quality of its education system in the Global

Competitiveness Index.

156

While children

receive, on average, almost 12 years of

education, adjusted for the quality of education,

this is equivalent to only 8 years of schooling.

Brazil was one of the early adopters

of ICT in education, beginning in the

1970s. Software such as Computer Aid

Instruction was developed in 1974, and

strategies for introducing computers into

high school education also began to be

developed. In the 1980s, a number of

programmes were developed at the national

level, driven by the federal government

and the Ministry of Education.

157

However, despite developments in the

policy environment to support the use of

ICT in education, uptake was limited and

the number of internet users in the country

remained low throughout the 1990s and

early 2000s, at 0.01–5 users per 100 people

according to EIU data. Programmes which

delivered only ICT infrastructure to schools,

such as Um Computador por Aluno (One

Computer per Student), proved ineective

and had a neutral or, in some cases, even

a negative eect on student grades.

158

In 2008, a series of programmes were launched

which focused on the expansion of broadband

internet. At the same time, the School

Brazil

Student learning outcomes

152

Average years of schooling (2020): .

Learning-adjusted average

years of schooling (2020): .

Connectivity in schools

151

School connectivity: . (out of )

Economic proﬁle

153

GDP (2020): US$, billion

GDP per capita (2020): US$,

 World Economic Forum Global Competitiveness Index. https://www.weforum.org/reports/the-global-competitiveness-report-2020

 World Bank Human Capital Index. https://www.worldbank.org/en/publication/human-capital

 EIU.

 EIU data.

 UNDP Human Development Reports. http://hdr.undp.org/en/composite/HDI

 World Economic Forum Global Competitiveness Index. https://www.weforum.org/reports/the-global-competitiveness-report-2020

 Valente, J. A. and Almeida, M. E. B. (2020), “Brazilian Technology Policies in Education: History and Lessons Learned”, education policy analysis archives

(epaa), Volume 28 Number 94, June 22 2020, ISSN 1068-2341. https://epaa.asu.edu/ojs/article/download/4295/2461

 Henriksen, A. et al (2019), “Education outcomes of broadband expansion in Brazilian municipalities”.

https://econpolrg.files.wordpress.com/2019/12/s1.4-paper-broadband-final.pdf

Appendix A: Country profiles

Connecting learners

Narrowing the educational divide

Broadband Program (Programa Banda Larga

nas Escolas) was implemented to connect all

urban public schools to the infrastructure that

was being developed.

159

It aimed to connect

over 64,000 schools and provide free service

up to 2025. An evaluation of the programme

conducted by Badaysan et al. (2014) found

that participating schools performed better

than non-participants in Portugese and maths

tests and that the beneﬁts grew over time.

160

Other policies and programmes to tackle

connectivity challenges included the 2010

National Broadband Plan (Plano Nacional de

Banda Larga) which rolled out an aordable

25,000-kilometre broadband network

extending to less-developed municipalities,

161

and the 2017 Connected Education Innovation

Policy to provide universal access to high-

speed internet in education.

162

Around this

time, the number of internet users in Brazil

saw a marked increase from 2.9 per 100

people in 2000 to 33.8 per 100 by 2008, and

reaching almost 75 per 100 by 2020.

163

Despite the growth in the number of internet

users in Brazil, digital exclusion remains a

challenge. According to a survey conducted

by the Brazilian Institute of Geography

and Statistics in 2018, approximately

46 million citizens did not have internet

access—25.4% of respondents noted

that the high price of services excluded

them, while 24.3% cited not having the

technical ability to use the internet.

164

In the context of school connectivity, a

number of challenges prevent the adoption of

technology. In 2019, based on the latest annual

survey of ICT use in Brazilian schools, 64%

of private schools in urban areas used virtual

learning platforms, compared with only 14% of

urban public schools. Insucient computers

was most commonly cited by teachers as a

barrier to ICT use and, for 70% of teachers

in urban schools, low connection speeds

also strongly hindered ICT use. Furthermore,

while internet access is available in urban

schools, it is not always made available to

students. In private schools, for example, only

49% of schools with WiFi made it available

to students. In rural schools, 40% were

highlighted as having at least one computer

with internet access. However, the scope of use

of a single computer is limited, and less than

2% of these schools had a broadband speed

faster than 11 Mbps. The biggest challenge

in rural areas was noted as being the lack of

infrastructure in the region and/or the school.

165

To bridge this digital gap, in 2019, the plenary

of the Câmara dos Deputados approved

a Bill authorising the use of part of the

Telecommunications Universalization Fund to

expand school connectivity in urban and rural

public schools.

166

The aim is to provide access

 Ibid.

 Badaysan, N. et al. (2014), “The Impact of Brazil’s ‘Broadband at School Program’ on Student Achievement”, 2014 TPRC Conference Paper.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2413976

 World Bank, “Broadband in Brazil”. https://ddtoolkits.worldbankgroup.org/broadband-strategies/case-studies/broadband-brazil

 “Broadband access project to benefit nearly 13 million students”. http://www.brazil.gov.br/about-brazil/news/2017/11/broadband-access-project-to-

benefit-nearly-13-million-students

 EIU data.

 Mari, A. (2020), “Digital exclusion still a reality for millions of Brazilians”. https://www.zdnet.com/article/digital-exclusion-still-a-reality-for-millions-

of-brazilians/

 Brazillian Internet Steering Committee (2019), “Executive Summary: ICT in Education Survey 2019”. https://www.cetic.br/media/docs/

publicacoes/1/20201123093020/executive_summary_ict_education_2019.pdf

 “House approves use of fund to expand broadband in schools”. https://olhardigital.com.br/en/2019/12/10/noticias/camara-aprova-uso-de-fundo-para-

ampliar-banda-larga-em-escolas/?gfetch=2019%2F12%2F10%2Fnews%2Fcamara-approves-use-of-fund-to-expand-broadband-in-schools%2F

 “Broadband access project to benefit nearly 13 million students”. http://www.brazil.gov.br/about-brazil/news/2017/11/broadband-access-project-

to-benefit-nearly-13-million-students

Connecting learners

Narrowing the educational divide

Brazil: Potential economic gains from improved

school connectivity 2020–30

Real GDP (US$ billions)

2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2025 2026 2027 2028 2029 2030

200

300

400

2410

2480

2530

2570

2630

2680

2730

2770

2820

2860

2900

500

600

700

800

900

000

+6.5%

2260

2330

2380

2420

2470

2640

2680

2720

2520

2560

2600

Brazil: Potential economic gains from improved school connectivity 2020-2030

Real GDP (US$ billions)

Baseline Scenario 1: Rwanda Scenario 2: South Korea Scenario 3: Finland

Source: EIU analysis

Note: The scenarios assess the potential economic impacts of increasing school connectivity levels to match a reference country

Connecting learners

Narrowing the educational divide

El Salvador is a small developing country.

According to EIU estimates, its 2020 real

GDP stood at US$21 billion, with GDP per

capita of US$3,290.

171

It ranked 124th out

of 189 countries on the UNDP’s Human

Development Index in 2019.

172

A signiﬁcant

area for improvement in El Salvador’s

human development performance relates

to education—it scores only 2.3 out of 8 in

terms of the quality of its education system

in the Global Competitiveness Index.

173

Recognising the importance of high-quality

education in the socioeconomic development

of the country, the public sector, through the

Ministry of Education, has placed emphasis on

improving the educational system. The primary

area of focus has been in terms of expanding

access to education following the end of the

country’s civil war in 1992 which destroyed

schools and left teachers and children in fear

of attending those schools that remained.

174

In the mid-2000s, the use of technology

began to become integrated within

education strategies. The government’s

2004–09 National Education Plan, for

example, identiﬁed the use of technologies

and the promotion of connectivity as key

priorities for the sector. Subsequently,

under the ambitious Una Niña, Un Niño,

Una Computadora (One Boy, One Girl, One

Computer) programme, the country aimed

to deliver at least 50,000 computers to 2,600

schools by the end of 2015.

175

Another major

project in relation to the use of technology

in education was the Conéctate programme

which included: Edunet, a project to provide

connectivity across public schools; Mi

Portal, an online portal for students; and

Computers for Schools, which collected

donations of computers for public schools.

176

More recently, and partially stimulated by

the COVID-19 pandemic, the Ministry of

Innovation announced its Digital Agenda for

2020–30, identifying education as one of its

four key pillars in addition to digital identity,

modernisation of the state and e-government.

In collaboration with the Ministry of Education,

it has prioritised the digitisation of the

El Salvador

Student learning outcomes

169

Average years of schooling (2020): .

Learning-adjusted average

years of schooling (2020): .

Connectivity in schools

168

School connectivity: . (out of )

Economic proﬁle

170

GDP (2020): US$. billion

GDP per capita (2020): US$,

 World Economic Forum Global Competitiveness Index. https://www.weforum.org/reports/the-global-competitiveness-report-2020

 World Bank Human Capital Index. https://www.worldbank.org/en/publication/human-capital

 EIU.

 EIU data.

 UNDP Human Development Reports. http://hdr.undp.org/en/composite/HDI

 World Economic Forum Global Competitiveness Index. https://www.weforum.org/reports/the-global-competitiveness-report-2020

 Excellence and Innovation in Secondary Education (EXITO), Project Information Document, Ministry of Education, El Salvador.

http://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/232171468027569198/pdf/Project0Inform1nt010Appraisal0Stage.pdf

 Miranda, D. (2015), “Education Reform in El Salvador: Progress and Challenges”. https://www.coha.org/education-reform-in-el-salvador-progress-

and-challenges/

 Noyola, R. (2007), “Development of the Internet in El Salvador”. https://www.listasal.info/en/internet-in-el-salvador/3-government-projects.shtml

Connecting learners

Narrowing the educational divide

education sector.

177

As part of this, a process

has been initiated to train 100 technical

specialists who will in turn train 46,000

teachers to build capacity in online education.

The programmes implemented in El Salvador

to integrate technology within education

and improve school connectivity have had

some impact but there remains signiﬁcant

scope for improvement—the country’s

score on the Internet Access in Schools

indicator of the Global Competitiveness

Index, for example, was 2.6 out of 7 in

2009, and still only 3.2 by 2017.

178

One key challenge is the lack of internet access

in the ﬁrst place—across urban areas, the

internet penetration rate in 2019 was 26%,

and only 2.6% in rural areas.

179

Expanding

connectivity is the starting point for integrating

the use of the internet in education, hence

highlighting the need for greater investment

in infrastructure in the country. At the same

time, investment in education remains

relatively low—while the government had

aimed to increase investment in education

to 6% of GDP, it remains at 3.5%.

180

 Ministry of Education (2020), “MINED works on the digitization of education”. https://www.mined.gob.sv/noticias/item/1015516-mined-trabaja-en-la-

digitalizacion-de-la-educacion.html

 World Bank data. https://tcdata360.worldbank.org/indicators/hbfab20aa?indicator=571&viz=line_chart&years=2007,2017

 Alliance For Affordable Internet (2020), “Rural broadband policy framework: Connecting the unconnected”.

https://www.un.org/development/desa/dspd/wp-content/uploads/sites/22/2020/07/Rural-Broadband-Policy-Framework-Report_A4AI.pdf

 Miranda, D. (2015), “Education Reform in El Salvador: Progress and Challenges”. https://www.coha.org/education-reform-in-el-salvador-progress-and-

challenges/#_edn16

El Salvador: Potential economic gains from

improved school connectivity 2020–30

Real GDP (US$ billions)

2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2025 2026 2027 2028 2029 2030

23.3

24.0

24.7

25.3

25.9

26.6

27.3

28.0

28.7

29.4

30.1

+9.1%

El Salvador: Potential economic gains from improved school connectivity 2020-2030

Real GDP (US$ billions)

Baseline Scenario 1: Rwanda

Scenario 2: South Korea Scenario 3: Finland

21.3

22.0

22.6

23.2

23.8

26.3

27.0

27.6

24.4

25.0

25.7

Source: EIU analysis

Note: The scenarios assess the potential economic impacts of increasing school connectivity levels to match a reference country

Connecting learners

Narrowing the educational divide

Kyrgyzstan is a developing country in

Central Asia and the smallest economy in

the region with real GDP of US$6.6 billion

in 2020.

184

GDP per capita in the country

stood at US$1,010 in 2020, compared with

an average of US$4,500 across the Central

Asia region.

185

On the UNDP’s Human

Development Index, Kyrgyzstan ranked

120th out of 189 countries.

186

It also had

the weakest performance in the region in

terms of the quality of its education system,

scoring 3.1 out of 7 on this indicator in

the Global Competitiveness Index.

187

The country’s performance on quality of

education is in part a reﬂection of its access to

school connectivity, where it also lags behind

with a score of 3.6 out of 7, compared with a

regional average of 4.5. To address the lack of

digital connectivity, the Kyrgyz government

adopted the Digital Kyrgyzstan 2019–2023 plan

which, among other aims, seeks to improve

digital infrastructure and internet connectivity

across the country, and to enhance digital

literacy through training and IT education.

188

A major challenge in Kyrgyzstan is that over

60% of the population remains disconnected

from the internet. The geographic landscape of

the country is the biggest hurdle in establishing

internet infrastructure—94% of its area is more

than 1,000 metres above sea level, creating

signiﬁcant challenges and costs in laying

cables for internet connections.

189

Moreover,

since it is landlocked, it relies on neighbouring

countries for access to submarine-cable

landing stations which adds extra cost. The

cost of international bandwidth in Kyrgyzstan

is estimated at US$100 per Mbps per month,

which is signiﬁcantly higher than the cost

in Kazakhstan ($4) or Russia ($15).

190

To overcome these challenges to connectivity,

particularly in the context of COVID-19

when all education was moved online, the

Internet Society worked with the Ministry

of Education and international funders to

deliver an innovative solution—the Ilimbox,

a digital library storing over 500 books, 250

videos and 4 million Wikipedia articles.

191

Kyrgyzstan

Student learning outcomes

182

Average years of schooling (2020): .

Learning-adjusted average

years of schooling (2020): .

Connectivity in schools

181

School connectivity: . (out of )

Economic proﬁle

183

GDP (2020): US$. billion

GDP per capita (2020): US$,

 World Economic Forum Global Competitiveness Index. https://www.weforum.org/reports/the-global-competitiveness-report-2020

 World Bank Human Capital Index. https://www.worldbank.org/en/publication/human-capital

 EIU.

 EIU data.

 The Central Asia region includes: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan

 UNDP Human Development Reports. http://hdr.undp.org/en/composite/HDI

 World Economic Forum Global Competitiveness Index. https://www.weforum.org/reports/the-global-competitiveness-report-2020

 US Department of Commerce, International Trade Administration. https://www.trade.gov/country-commercial-guides/kyrgyz-republic-information-and-

communication-technology-ict

 Yang, Z. (2021), “Where the internet was delivered by a donkey”. https://restofworld.org/2021/delivering-the-internet-by-donkey/

 Coffin, J. et al (2015), “Kyrgyz Internet Environment Assessment”, Internet Society. https://www.internetsociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/

Kyrgyzstan_Study.pdf

 Yang, Z. (2021), “Where the internet was delivered by a donkey”. https://restofworld.org/2021/delivering-the-internet-by-donkey/

Connecting learners

Narrowing the educational divide

The box can be used without access to the

internet and also provides a local WiFi hotspot

which children can connect to through their

phones in order to download content.

However, it is recognised that this was only

a temporary solution to the connectivity

challenges in the country in order to manage

the eects of the pandemic, and a more

long-term solution is yet to be implemented.

To this end, the Kyrgyzstan government

has been working closely with UNICEF

on a blockchain solution to monitor and

improve connectivity in schools.

192

There

are also plans to upgrade the Ilimbox device

(Project Ilimbox 2.0) to make it a smart online

learning platform that allows teachers to

create content and students to access the

live rather than pre-loaded content.

193

Kyrgyzstan: Potential economic gains from

improved school connectivity 2020–30

Real GDP (US$ billions)

2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2025 2026 2027 2028 2029 2030

7.1

7.3

7.6

7.9

8.3

8.6

9.0

9.4

9.8

10.2

10.6

Kyrgyzstan: Potential economic gains from improved school connectivity 2020-2030

Real GDP (US$ billions)

+7.2%

Baseline Scenario 1: Rwanda Scenario 2: South Korea Scenario 3: Finland

6.6

6.8

7.1

7.4

7.7

8.0

8.4

8.7

9.1

9.5

9.9

Source: EIU analysis

Note: The scenarios assess the potential economic impacts of increasing school connectivity levels to match a reference country

 Rodriguez, J. (2019), “UNICEF Plans to Create Blockchain to Improve Internet Connectivity in Kyrgyzstan Schools”.

https://ihodl.com/topnews/2019-03-07/unicef-create-blockchain-improve-internet-connectivity-kyrgyzstan-schools/

 “Digital transformation in the Kyrgyz Republic”. https://johnsmithtrust.org/digital-transformation-in-the-kyrgyz-republic/

Connecting learners

Narrowing the educational divide

Niger is a small developing country in

sub-Saharan Africa with total real GDP of

US$12.7 billion in 2020, and GDP per capita

of US$530, the tenth lowest of any country

in the world.

197

On the UNDP’s Human

Development Index, Niger ranked last out of

189 countries.

198

It performs particularly poorly

in terms of its average years of schooling of

5.5 years compared with a world average of

11.3 years—after adjusting for the quality of

education, the average years of education

in Niger drops even further to 2.7 years.

With a rapidly growing population, the

education sector in Niger is under immense

pressure to serve a larger number of students

and to provide enhanced quality of teaching

and learning. As of 2019, there were 500,000

new students enrolling into primary school—

this is expected to double to 1 million students

by 2030.

199

In addition to the growing demand

for education, its provision is challenged by

security concerns—for example, in 2018,

30 schools located in the Dia region were

closed as a result of terrorist threats.

200

Recognising the education crisis in the

country, the government has prioritised

spending on education, which currently

accounts for 20.7% of the government’s total

budget, and is expected to grow further.

The Sustainable Development and Inclusive

Growth Strategy 2035 and Economic and

Social Development Plan 2017–21, for example,

emphasise the need for improvements in

the education sector in order to transform

human capital and support sustained growth.

The focus of education funding in Niger

is currently on providing basic education

access, and developing infrastructure and

curricula.

201

With these more seemingly

pressing challenges, school connectivity has

not been a signiﬁcant priority for policymakers.

With limited availability of connectivity, either

through schools or at home, the education

system responded to the COVID-19 pandemic

by providing distance learning through

radio for those who could access it, and

through the distribution of printed written

material to children in the most deprived and

Niger

Student learning outcomes

195

Average years of schooling (2020): .

Learning-adjusted average

years of schooling (2020): .

Connectivity in schools

194

School connectivity: . (out of )

Economic proﬁle

196

GDP (2020): US$. billion

GDP per capita (2020): US$

 Source data on school connectivity is not available for Niger and has been estimated by the EIU

 World Bank Human Capital Index. https://www.worldbank.org/en/publication/human-capital

 EIU.

 EIU data.

 UNDP Human Development Reports. http://hdr.undp.org/en/composite/HDI

 World Bank, Niger Learning Improvement for Results in Education Project (P168779), Project Information Document.

https://ewsdata.rightsindevelopment.org/files/documents/79/WB-P168779.pdf

 Ibid.

 World Bank, Niger Learning Improvement for Results in Education Project (P168779), Project Information Document.

https://ewsdata.rightsindevelopment.org/files/documents/79/WB-P168779.pdf

Connecting learners

Narrowing the educational divide

disadvantaged parts of the country.

202

The

challenges faced by Niger in the wake of the

pandemic highlight the importance of digital

connectivity and technological development

in building a resilient education system.

As one of the least connected countries in

the world, with only 15.6% of households

with internet access compared with 54.7%

globally,

203

there is a growing recognition

of the need to expand connectivity both in

general and to support education. Niger’s

geography creates a substantial barrier to

connectivity—80% of its land is covered by

the Sahara Desert.

204

Furthermore, more than

80% of the population live in remote rural

areas.

205

To overcome this, the government

has initiated the Niger 2.0 Smart Village

Project which seeks to invest in broadband

infrastructure to provide internet access in

rural regions. Alongside this, digital services

are being expanded in order to leverage

increased access to the internet and realise

the beneﬁts that this can oer—and education

is one area that has been identiﬁed for digital

transformation through the programme.

206

Niger: Potential economic gains from improved

school connectivity 2020–30

Real GDP (US$ billions)

2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2025 2026 2027 2028 2029 2030

15.2

15.6

16.2

17.2

18.2

19.3

20.5

21.7

23.0

24.3

25.8

Niger: Potential economic gains from improved school connectivity 2020-2030

Real GDP (US$ billions)

Baseline Scenario 1: Rwanda Scenario 2: South Korea Scenario 3: Finland

+19.4%

12.7

13.1

13.6

14.4

15.3

16.2

17.1

18.2

19.2

20.4

21.6

Source: EIU analysis

Note: The scenarios assess the potential economic impacts of increasing school connectivity levels to match a reference country

 “Niger: Strengthening the resilience of the education system to limit the effects of COVID-19”. https://www.globalpartnership.org/where-we-work/niger

 International Telecommunication Union (2018), “Measuring the Information Society Report 2018”, Niger, Volume 2.

https://www.itu.int/en/ITU-D/LDCs/Documents/2017/Country%20Profiles/Country%20Profile_Niger.pdf

 African Development Bank Group. https://www.afdb.org/en/documents/niger-national-climate-change-profile#:~:text=Niger%20covers%20a%20

land%20area,covered%20by%20the%20Sahara%20Desert.

 “Smart Villages: Empowering rural communities in ‘Niger 2.0’”. https://etradeforall.org/news/smart-villages-empowering-rural-communities-in-niger-

2-0/#:~:text=The%20Republic%20of%20Niger%20is,hard%2Dto%2Dreach%20areas.&text=The%20project%20aims%20to%20improve,Niger%20

through%20improved%20broadband%20infrastructure.

 Ibid.

Connecting learners

Narrowing the educational divide

Sierra Leone is a small developing country

in sub-Saharan Africa with total real GDP of

US$3.7 billion in 2020 and the fourth lowest

GDP per capita in the world of only US$460.

209

It also sits close to the bottom of the UNDP’s

Human Development Index, ranking 182

out of 189 countries.

210

While it performs

relatively well in terms of the average years of

schooling attained by children with an average

of 9.6 years compared with 8.3 across the

wider sub-Saharan Africa region, this drops

to 4.9 years after accounting for quality.

Since the implementation of the National

Education Policy 2010, ICT has formed a major

component across all levels of education,

encouraging the use of technologies to enhance

digital skills and deliver distance education

programmes.

211

With over 30% of school-

age children not enrolled in schools in 2010,

one of the priorities of the government was

to provide greater access to basic education

through the use of digital technologies.

However, lack of connectivity has been

a challenge in the uptake of ICT. While

internet penetration continues to remain

low in the country at 30% in 2021 compared

with over 50% globally, there has been a

signiﬁcant rise in recent years—between

2019 and 2020, the number of internet

users in Sierra Leone grew by 8.1%, with

additional growth of 20% between 2020

and 2021.

212

To a large extent, this growth

can be attributed to two developments in

2019: the cable link to neighbouring Guinea

and the construction of a 600 kilometre

Economic Community of West African

States (ECOWAS) Wide Area Network.

213

To expand access to education and to extend

the growth in connectivity in the country to

the education sector, the government has

implemented a ﬂagship project under its

recent Medium-term National Development

Plan (MTNDP) 2019–2023—the Free Quality

School Education Programme (FQSE).

214

Sierra Leone

Student learning outcomes

207

Average years of schooling (2020): .

Learning-adjusted average

years of schooling (2020): .

Connectivity in schools

School connectivity: . (out of )

Economic proﬁle

208

GDP (2020): US$. billion

GDP per capita (2020): US$

 World Bank Human Capital Index. https://www.worldbank.org/en/publication/human-capital

 EIU.

 EIU data.

 UNDP Human Development Reports. http://hdr.undp.org/en/composite/HDI

 Government of Sierra Leone, Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports, “National Education Policy 2010”.

https://mbsse.gov.sl/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/2010-National-Education-Policy.pdf

 https://datareportal.com/digital-in-sierra-leone

 “Sierra Leone - Telecoms, Mobile and Broadband - Statistics and Analyses”. https://www.budde.com.au/Research/Sierra-Leone-Telecoms-Mobile-and-

Broadband-Statistics-and-Analyses

 International Monetary Fund. https://www.imf.org/~/media/Files/Publications/CR/2020/English/1SLEEA2020002.ashx+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=ae

Connecting learners

Narrowing the educational divide

The FQSE seeks to provide free admissions

to all children across public schools, and

has resulted in an increase in the number

of children enrolled by almost 700,000.

215

However, putting in place the infrastructure to

accommodate this growth in enrolment has

been slow—only just over half of classrooms

are in good condition and a large number have

no access to water and toilets, let alone the

internet, which only 1% of schools have.

216

To address the lack of connectivity, private

entities are coming forward under the umbrella

of Project One Access and Connectivity

for Schools, which is targeting 500 schools

with the aim of providing free high-speed

internet. A memorandum of understanding

between Sierra Leone Cable Limited,

Afcom and Niche Technologies further aims

to set up an online school management

platform in 100 schools—it is intended

that this platform will provide access to

online learning material for teachers.

217

Sierra Leone: Potential economic gains from

improved school connectivity 2020–30

Real GDP (US$ billions)

2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2025 2026 2027 2028 2029 2030

4.2

4.3

4.6

4.8

5.0

5.2

5.4

5.7

5.9

6.2

6.4

Sierra Leone: Potential economic gains from improved school connectivity 2020-2030

Real GDP (US$ billions)

Baseline Scenario 1: Rwanda Scenario 2: South Korea Scenario 3: Finland

+14.2%

3.7

3.8

4.0

4.2

4.4

4.6

4.8

5.0

5.2

5.4

5.6

Source: EIU analysis

Note: The scenarios assess the potential economic impacts of increasing school connectivity levels to match a reference country

 Thomas, A. (2020), “Free education in Sierra Leone – a lot done, yet much more to do”. https://www.thesierraleonetelegraph.com/free-education-in-

sierra-leone-a-lot-done-yet-much-more-to-do/

 Ibid.

 Samba, S., “Enhance strategic aspirations of country’s Education & Health sectors”. https://yame.space/whats-up-africalinks/2019/6/3/500-schools-to-get-

free-internet-connections-in-sierra-leone

Connecting learners

Narrowing the educational divide

The United States had the highest total

real GDP in the world of US$18.1 trillion,

and among the highest GDP per capita

with a national average of US$55,000

per person.

221

It performs well on the

UNDP’s Human Development Index,

ranking 17th out of 189 countries.

222

In terms of education, the United States

ranks highly compared with other countries.

On average, children receive 12.9 years of

education (10.6 after adjusting for learning

quality), compared with a global average of 11.3

years (7.8 after adjusting for learning quality).

223

According to EducationSuperHighway

(2019), the country has also made signiﬁcant

progress in achieving school connectivity. In

2014, only 25% of classrooms and 4 million

students had internet access, while by 2019,

99% of schools had access to ﬁbre networks,

connecting 46.3 million students across the

country to digital learning solutions.

224

The E-rate programme—implemented by

the Federal Communications Commission in

1996—has played a major role in expanding

school connectivity.

225

It oers discounts to

schools and libraries in the country of between

20% to 90%, depending on eligibility criteria,

for internet access. All schools that meet the

deﬁnition of an elementary or secondary school

are eligible, and the total amount that can be

received is determined by the location of the

school—rural areas, for example, receive the

highest discount. Funding is provided through

the USF, with a funding cap in 2019 of US$4.15

billion earmarked for the E-rate programme. The

USF has a broader remit to provide aordable

telecoms services across the healthcare and

education sectors, with a particular focus

on areas with low incomes and where these

services are costly to provide.

226

When it was

ﬁrst implemented, E-rate’s focus was on basic

telecoms and internet services. However, as

the telecoms sector has modernised, so too

has the programme, which now has a goal to

expand not only internet connectivity, but

speciﬁcally broadband connectivity and WiFi

access through the E-Rate Modernisation

Orders adopted in 2010 and 2014.

227

United States

Student learning outcomes

219

Average years of schooling (2020): .

Learning-adjusted average years

of schooling (2020): .

Connectivity in schools

218

% of schools with ﬁbre

infrastructure (2019): %

Average bandwidth per

student (2019):  Kbps

Economic proﬁle

220

GDP (2020): US$, billion

GDP per capita (2020): US$,

 EducationSuperHighway (2019). https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/esh-sots-pdfs/2019%20State%20of%20the%20States.pdf

 World Bank Human Capital Index. https://www.worldbank.org/en/publication/human-capital

 Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA); EIU analysis.

 Ibid.

 UNDP Human Development Reports. http://hdr.undp.org/en/composite/HDI

 World Bank Human Capital Index. https://www.worldbank.org/en/publication/human-capital

 EducationSuperHighway (2019), “2019 State of the States”. https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/esh-sots-pdfs/2019%20State%20of%20the%20States.pdf

 Federal Communications Commission. https://www.fcc.gov/general/universal-service-program-schools-and-libraries-e-rate

 Federal Communications Commission. https://www.fcc.gov/general/universal-service-fund

 Federal Communications Commission. https://www.fcc.gov/consumers/guides/universal-service-program-schools-and-libraries-e-rate

Connecting learners

Narrowing the educational divide

While the E-rate programme has enabled

universal access to the internet across

schools in the United States, the quality of

access in terms of connectivity speed varies

considerably. Although 99% of school districts

have achieved the goal of connecting each

student to the internet at a minimum speed

of 100 Kbps, only 38% achieve the 1 Mbps

standard set by the Federal Communications

Commission to maximise the beneﬁts of

digital learning—on average, the bandwidth

per student across the country stood at 676

Kbps in 2019. However, even though the speed

of internet connectivity remains low in many

states, there has been signiﬁcant progress at

the national level. The average internet speed

available to students has increased almost

threefold from 258 Kbps in 2015 to 676 Kbps

in 2019. The latest E-rate modernisation

order issued in 2014 places an emphasis on

high-speed, cost-eective internet access.

228

A further connectivity challenge for students

in the US is the divide in the availability

of internet access and digital devices at

home—the homework gap. At least 25%

of households—particularly low-income

households in rural areas—do not have

broadband access at home. The Emergency

Broadband Beneﬁt,

229

introduced by the

Federal Communications Commission,

attempts to address this by increasing the

aordability of internet and device access

for eligible low-income households with

a one-time discount of up to US$50 on

broadband service and up to US$100 for

a device such as a laptop. The Emergency

Connectivity Fund has also secured US$7.1

billion to extend broadband services and

enable remote learning, particularly in

response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

230

 Federal Communications Commission. https://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-continues-e-rate-reboot-meet-nations-digital-learning-needs

 https://www.fcc.gov/broadbandbenefit

 https://www.fundsforlearning.com/ecf/#:~:text=Included%20in%20the%20legislation%20is,the%20federal%20E-rate%20program.

United States: Potential economic gains from improved internet bandwidth 2020–30

Real GDP (US$ billions)

2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2025 2026 2027 2028 2029 2030

19,120

19,830

20,410

20,810

21,190

21,600

22,010

22,440

22,870

23,310

23,760

United States: Potential economic gains from improved internet bandwidth 2020-2030

Real GDP (US$ billions)

Baseline Scenario 1: National average Scenario 2: North Dakota

+5.5%

8,000

9,000

0,000

1,000

2,000

3,000

4,000

18,120

18,800

19,340

19,720

20,080

20,460

20,860

21,260

21,670

22,090

22,510

Source: EIU analysis

Note: The scenarios assess the potential economic impacts of increasing broadband bandwidth levels across states to match

either the national average or the average in the highest performing state (North Dakota)

Connecting learners

Narrowing the educational divide

Appendix B: Methodology note

Introduction to the model

The EIU has developed an impact model

to estimate the potential individual-level

and societal gains from improving school

connectivity. The model uses a two-step

approach to quantify the impacts:

• Stage 1—Regression analysis:

In the ﬁrst stage, we build econometric

regression models to assess the relationships

between the following, based on cross-

country data:

- School connectivity and learning outcomes

for schoolchildren

- Learning outcomes for schoolchildren and

economic growth

- School connectivity and economic growth

(through improved learning outcomes, as

well as other channels of impact)

To assess the impacts of not only access

to connectivity, but also the quality of

connectivity, we build a regression model

to quantify the impact of improvements in

broadband speed for students and economic

growth. This ﬁnal model uses state-level data

in the United States.

The analysis incorporates a series of

inputs including: advisory interviews with

academics and experts; a literature review of

existing studies on these relationships; and

a data audit of macroeconomic and related

indicators to assess these trends.

• Stage 2—Impact assessment:

The relationships identiﬁed through the

econometric analysis are then applied to

selected countries to estimate the potential

implications of improvements in connectivity

levels. Impacts are assessed for six key

markets: Brazil, El Salvador, Kyrgyzstan,

Niger, Sierra Leone and the United States.

These key markets have been selected on

the basis of a number of criteria including:

- Regional representation: Countries

have been selected to obtain a regional

representation across regions including

the Americas (North America, South

America, Central America), Central

Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa.

- School performance: Across the regions

identiﬁed, representative countries

are selected by identifying the worst-

performing countries in terms of internet

access in schools and the quality of

education systems based on the World

Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness

Index.

231

These countries were selected

for holding the greatest potential

for improvement in connectivity.

- Economic development: In addition to

school performance, a further criterion

applied in selecting countries was level

of economic development as measured

by UNDP’s Human Development Index.

Countries that rank low on the Index

have the most to gain economically from

improvements in school connectivity.

- Data availability: A ﬁnal criterion used

to select countries after applying the

criteria above is the availability of data to

perform the analysis. Data requirements

for the analysis are discussed below.

 World Economic Forum Global Competitiveness Index. https://www.weforum.org/reports/the-global-competitiveness-report-2020

Connecting learners

Narrowing the educational divide

Scenario analysis is used to assess the

implications of improved school connectivity

in the six key markets identiﬁed.

For ﬁve of the six key markets—Brazil, El

Salvador, Kyrgyzstan, Niger and Sierra

Leone—the analysis compares educational

and economic outcomes in each country

under a baseline which assumes no change

in school connectivity levels, relative to

alternative scenarios of higher levels of

connectivity. The scenarios are developed

based on current connectivity levels in

three reference countries: Finland, Rwanda

and South Korea. These countries are

selected as benchmark countries for

the analysis for the following reasons:

- Finland: Finland ranks third in the World

Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness

Index in terms of the quality of its

education system (after Switzerland

and Singapore) and has among the

highest levels of access to the internet

in schools.

233

There is a concerted

eort in the country to improve school

connectivity through government and

community projects to enable free access

to the internet and to bring high-speed

ﬁbre-optic broadband to remote areas.

- Rwanda: Across low income countries,

Rwanda scores the highest in terms of both

internet access in schools and the quality of

the education system based on the World

Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness

Index.

234

It oers a feasible and attainable

benchmark for other low income countries.

- South Korea: South Korea scores the

highest on the EIU’s Inclusive Internet

Index (2020) in terms of its availability

of internet connectivity nationally. It

therefore oers a benchmark of global

best practice for other countries.

235

For the United States, the analysis

explores the potential impact on GDP

of improving the speed of broadband

connectivity available to students. Two

scenarios are considered including:

- National average: This scenario

explores the state-level implications

of improving broadband speed to

match the national average.

- Benchmark state: The second scenario

assesses the state-level implications of

improving broadband speed to match the

best-performing state in the country in

terms of broadband speed—North Dakota.

The analysis provides novel insights for

policymakers, education providers and

telecoms service providers. By quantifying

the implications of school connectivity and

speed at both the micro level of individual

learners and the macro level of the wider

economy, the analysis seeks to incentivise

coordinated action across all levels to

overcome barriers to improved connectivity.

 UNDP Human Development Reports. http://hdr.undp.org/en/content/human-development-index-hdi

 World Economic Forum Global Competitiveness Index. https://www.weforum.org/reports/the-global-competitiveness-report-2020

 Ibid.

 The Economist Intelligence Unit. https://theinclusiveinternet.eiu.com/

Connecting learners

Narrowing the educational divide

Regression analysis

Model framework

In the ﬁrst stage of the analysis, we use

econometric approaches to assess the

relationships between school connectivity/

broadband speed and economic growth.

These impacts work through complex

channels which link school connectivity

to economic growth in two ways:

• Through individual beneﬁts: School

connectivity brings direct beneﬁts to

individual students, improving their

learning outcomes and opportunities

in higher education and in the labour

market. Over the long run, these beneﬁts

also stimulate economic impacts

through productivity improvements,

thus enabling technological progress.

• Through community development:

In addition to the socioeconomic beneﬁts

through the education system, improved

school connectivity can facilitate wider

community connectivity. This can generate

additional socioeconomic impacts through

community development and by facilitating

increased economic activity—for example,

by enabling digital marketplaces.

Connecting learners

Narrowing the educational divide

Pathway of impact: From connectivity to growth

Direct beneﬁts (beneﬁts to individual) Indirect beneﬁts (wider socioeconomic beneﬁts)

Improved school internet connectivity

Gross Domestic Product (GDP)

The quantity of inputs used in

production (labour and capital)

contributes to total output

The quality of inputs used in

production (labour and capital)

drives productivity and

contributes to total output

Contributes to eciency and

output, measured by factors

including levels of R&D

investment, national institutions;

trade levels, etc.

Improved

school internet

connectivity

facilitates wider

community

connectivity

Improved

school internet

connectivity

facilitates wider

community

connectivity

Increased access to

highly skilled

employees in the

labour force

Increased demand

for goods and

services, requiring

labour force

expansion

Increased labour

productivity from

improved skills and

education

Enablement of

technological

development

through increased

digital acumen in

the labour force

Input quantity Input quality Technological progress

Improved quality

of education

Improved access

to resources

Improved digital

literacy skills

Improved income

Improved employability

Improved education performance

Improved

quality of

life

Improved opportunities in

secondary/tertiary education

Source: EIU research

Connecting learners

Narrowing the educational divide

The pathways through which school

connectivity can stimulate socioeconomic

development are complex and interlinked. By

assessing each pathway individually, there is a

risk of: (a) double-counting some of the impacts

which operate in an interrelated way; and/or (b)

omitting speciﬁc channels of impact. In order to

overcome this challenge, our approach assesses

the overall impact of school connectivity

on economic growth (reﬂected in GDP)

without disaggregating the dierent channels

through which this is derived. These channels

are assessed qualitatively in our report.

To assess the relationship between school

connectivity and economic growth, we

have built three separate regression

models which capture the following:

1. Relationship between school connectivity

and learning outcomes: The ﬁrst model

considers the impact of changes in school

connectivity on the outcomes for students

in an educational setting. The purpose of

this model is to identify the individual-

level impacts of school connectivity.

2. Relationship between learning outcomes

and economic growth: The second

model assesses the relationship

between changes in learning outcomes

and GDP. Models 1 and 2 combined

provide an assessment of the impact

of school connectivity on GDP through

improvements in learning outcomes.

3. Relationship between school connectivity

and economic growth: While models 1

and 2 explore the link between school

connectivity and economic performance

through learning outcomes, we use

model 3 to assess other channels through

which school connectivity can stimulate

economic growth beyond education.

We explore a fourth relationship speciﬁcally

in the context of the United States:

4. Relationship between broadband speed and

economic growth: The fourth model uses

US-speciﬁc data to assess the link between

higher broadband speeds for students

and economic growth at the state level.

Connecting learners

Narrowing the educational divide

Simpliﬁed model framework

Improved education performance

Improved school internet connectivity

Gross Domestic Product (GDP)

The quantity of inputs used in

production (labour and capital)

contributes to total output

The quality of inputs used in

production (labour and capital)

drives productivity and

contributes to total output

Contributes to eciency and

output, measured by factors

including levels of R&D

investment, national institutions;

trade levels, etc.

Direct beneﬁts (beneﬁts to individual) Indirect beneﬁts (wider socioeconomic beneﬁts) Channels captured through EIU model

Input quantity Input quality Technological progress

Increased access to

highly skilled

employees in the

labour force

Increased demand

for goods and

services, requiring

labour force

expansion

Increased labour

productivity from

improved skills and

education

Enablement of

technological

development

through increased

digital acumen in

the labour force

Improved quality

of education

Improved access

to resources

Improved digital

literacy skills

Improved income

Improved employability

Improved

quality of

life

Improved opportunities in

secondary/tertiary education

Source: EIU research

Connecting learners

Narrowing the educational divide

For each of the models described above (with

the exception of model 4) we have built a cross-

country model to identify relationships. We

use a similar approach to that taken in Deloitte

(2016) to assess the impacts of improvements

in the quality of education on future wages

and employment for individuals.

236

For each

model, two separate modelling approaches

have been tested to identify the best ﬁt:

• Panel approach: This approach considers

changes in school connectivity and

economic performance between and within

countries over time. While it allows us to

assess variation both across countries and

time, gaps in the availability of time-series

data limits the robustness of the analysis. In

its most basic form, the model assumes the

following relationship between variables:

yit=αi + βXit + γt + ϵit

Where yit is the variable of interest (for

example, learning outcomes or economic

growth) for country i at time t, αi is a

country-speciﬁc intercept, Xit is a vector

of controls (including school connectivity),

and γt is a time-period-speciﬁc intercept.

• Cross-country approach: This approach

considers changes in school connectivity

and economic performance between

countries at a particular point in time. It is

simpler than the panel data approach as it

does not account for changes over time in

the variables, but relies to a greater extent

on actual data with fewer data gaps. In its

most basic form, the model assumes the

following relationship between variables:

yi = αyi0 + βXi + ϵi

Where yi is the variable of interest

for country i (for example, learning

outcomes or economic growth), αyi0

is the intercept and Xi is a vector of

controls (including school connectivity).

Both approaches are separate attempts

to estimate the relationships identiﬁed

above. The ﬁnal results are based on the

ﬁrst approach which is the preferred

one as it takes into account variation

both across countries and over time.

 Deloitte (2016), “The economic impact of improving school quality”. https://docs.education.gov.au/system/files/doc/other/ecoimpactschoolquality.pdf

Connecting learners

Narrowing the educational divide

The speciﬁc forms of the panel and cross-

country models for each regression are

discussed below. In both cases, data is

obtained across countries for the analysis.

Based on data availability, the following

100+ countries are used in the models:

237

The remainder of this section outlines the

regressions run for each model, the data

used and the results from the analysis.

Albania Canada Finland Japan Montenegro Russia Trinidad &

Tobago

Algeria Chad France Jordan Morocco Saudi Arabia Tunisia

Argentina Chile Gambia Kazakhstan Namibia Senegal Turkey

Australia Colombia Georgia Kuwait Netherlands Serbia Uganda

Austria Congo Germany Latvia New Zealand Seychelles Ukraine

Azerbaijan Costa Rica Greece Lesotho North

Macedonia

Singapore United Arab

Emirates

Bahrain Côte D’Ivoire Guatemala Lithuania Norway Slovakia United

Kingdom

Belgium Croatia Hong Kong Luxembourg Oman Slovenia United

States

Benin Cyprus Hungary Madagascar Panama South Africa Uruguay

Botswana Czech

Republic

Iceland Malawi Paraguay South Korea Vietnam

Brazil Denmark Indonesia Malaysia Peru Spain Zimbabwe

Bulgaria Ecuador Iran Malta Poland Sweden

Burkina Faso Egypt Ireland Mauritius Portugal Switzerland

Burundi Estonia Israel Mexico Qatar Thailand

Cameroon Eswatini Italy Moldova Romania Timor-Leste

 The specific countries used in each model specification may vary depending on the availability of relevant data.

Connecting learners

Narrowing the educational divide

Model 1: School connectivity

and learning outcomes

The ﬁrst model assesses the association

between school connectivity

and learning outcomes under the

hypothesis that improvements in school

connectivity have a signiﬁcant impact

on learning outcomes for students.

Our key variable of interest in this model

is the learning outcomes for students and

understanding the factors that drive it. In

measuring learning outcomes for students

as a proxy for educational quality, a number

of alternative measures could be considered.

Previous empirical studies have used

internationally comparable assessment scores

such as PISA language, science and maths

scores.

238,239

However, national standardised

testing varies across countries and across

the time periods of assessment. Hence, for

the purposes of this analysis, which requires

cross-country time-series data, test scores

are not used as a measure of quality. Instead,

we have learning-adjusted years of schooling

as our measure of learning outcomes.

240

This

measure, developed by the World Bank, adjusts

the average number of years of schooling in

each country by the quality of the education

delivered to provide an internationally

comparable measure of education quality.

Alternative measures have been used

and tested to capture levels of school

connectivity in assessing the extent to which

it drives learning outcomes, including:

• Internet Access in Schools Index: This

This measure is a sub-index in the World

Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness

Index.

241

It is designed to capture the

degree to which the internet is used in the

delivery of education across countries.

Each country is scored on a scale from 1 to

7. This measure directly relates to school

connectivity, but since it is based on an

index the interpretation of regression

analysis using this as a measure is less

meaningful from a policy perspective.

Analysis ﬁndings would suggest a relationship

between changes in performance on

the index and learning outcomes but

with no clear policy implications for

how to improve performance.

• Broadband subscriptions: An alternative

proxy measure of school connectivity

tested in the models is the number of

broadband subscriptions per 100 people in

the population from the ITU.

242

Unlike the

previous measure, this indicator captures

internet connectivity more broadly,

rather than speciﬁcally through schools.

However, there is a close correlation

between broadband subscriptions and

performance on the Internet Access in

Schools Index, suggesting that broadband

subscriptions could be a reasonable

proxy indicator for school connectivity. It

would be expected that general levels of

internet connectivity in a country would be

closely related with school connectivity.

 Hanushek, E. and Woessmann, L. (2010), “Education and economic growth”. http://hanushek.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/publications/

Hanushek%2BWoessmann%202010%20IntEncEduc%202.pdf

 Deloitte (2016), “The economic impact of improving school quality”. https://docs.education.gov.au/system/files/doc/other/ecoimpactschoolquality.pdf

 Angrist, N. et al. (2018), “Learning-Adjusted Years of Schooling (LAYS)”, World Bank, Policy Research Working Paper 8591.

http://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/243261538075151093/pdf/WPS8591.pdf

 World Bank data. https://tcdata360.worldbank.org/indicators/hbfab20aa?country=BRA&indicator=571&viz=line_chart&years=2007,2017

 International Communications Union. https://www.itu.int/en/ITU-D/Statistics/Pages/stat/default.aspx

Connecting learners

Narrowing the educational divide

Our ﬁnal model results use the Internet

Access in Schools Index as the measure

of school connectivity on the basis that it

is more directly linked to the hypothesis

being tested—namely the impact of school

connectivity on learning outcomes and GDP.

In addition to school connectivity, we

include a number of controls in the model

to capture other factors which could

inﬂuence learning outcomes for students:

• Government expenditure on education, as a

percentage of GDP (based on UNESCO data)

• Average years of schooling

(based on UNDP data)

• Time ﬁxed eects (to capture time-

speciﬁc eects on learning outcomes)

• Regional dummy variables (to capture

regional eects on learning outcomes)

• Interaction variables between income

levels and school connectivity (to assess

any dierences in the impact of school

connectivity on learning outcomes between

low , middle- and high-income countries)

The ﬁndings from the regression analysis

are shown in the table below. We present

the ﬁndings from our preferred model

speciﬁcation under three variations: time-

only ﬁxed eects; country-only ﬁxed

eects; and time and country ﬁxed eects.

Using a Lagrange Multiplier test of these

three variations, our preferred model is

the country-only ﬁxed eects variation.

Dependent variable: Learning-adjusted years of schooling (ln)

1.1. Time ﬁxed

eects

1.2. Country

ﬁxed eects

1.3. Time and country

ﬁxed eects

School connectivity (ln) 0.211452***

(0.025597)

0.063807***

(0.010464)

0.032785*

(0.015701)

Expenditure on

education (ln)

0.117436***

(0.0.14535)

-0.027635**

(0.010464)

-0.021553*

(0.010000)

Average years of

schooling (ln)

0.365476***

(0.020275)

0.189922***

(0.031171)

0.026066

(0.036088)

Time ﬁxed eects? Yes No Yes

Country ﬁxed eects? No Yes Yes

Observations 536 536 536

Countries 67 67 67

Time periods 8 8 8

R squared 0.89921 0.15006 0.018368

Model 1 results: School connectivity and learning outcomes

Source: EIU analysis

Note: *** represents signiﬁcance at the 1% level; ** represents signiﬁcance at the 5% level; and

* represents signiﬁcance at the 10% level. Standard errors in parentheses

Connecting learners

Narrowing the educational divide

Model 2: Learning outcomes

and economic growth

The second model assesses the association

between improved learning outcomes

(driven by improved school connectivity

or other factors) and economic growth.

We measure economic growth as the growth in

GDP per capita in each country using EIU data.

As in model 1, learning outcomes are proxied

by the learning-adjusted years of schooling

indicator. In addition, we include controls for

other factors which could impact on GDP

growth in addition to learning outcomes:

• Growth in ﬁxed capital investment

(based on EIU data)

• Growth in the size of the labour

force (based on EIU data)

• Time ﬁxed eects (to capture

time-speciﬁc eects)

• Regional dummy variables (to capture

regional eects on GDP growth)

• Interaction variable between income

levels and learning outcomes (to assess

any dierences in the impact of learning

outcomes on GDP growth between

low-, middle- and high-income countries)

By combining the estimates produced

from models 1 and 2, we can assess:

• First, the impact of a change in school

connectivity on educational outcomes

• Second, the impact of a change in

educational outcomes driven by school

connectivity on economic growth

The ﬁndings from the regression analysis

are shown in the table below. We present

the ﬁndings from our preferred model

speciﬁcation under three variations: time-

only ﬁxed eects; country-only ﬁxed

eects; and time and country ﬁxed eects.

Using a Lagrange Multiplier test of these

three variations, our preferred model is

the country-only ﬁxed eects variation.

Dependent variable: GDP per capita (ln)

2.1. Time ﬁxed

eects

2.2. Country

ﬁxed eects

2.3. Time and

country ﬁxed eects

Learning adjusted years

of schooling (ln)

1.170518***

(0.149759)

0.190218***

(0.054568)

-0.019859

(0.050542)

Investment (ln) 0.833662***

(0.027645)

0.263333***

(0.0117 75)

0.207800***

(0.011119)

Labour force (ln) -0.709973***

(0.028653)

0.026041

(0.034297)

-0.260657***

(0.036873)

Time ﬁxed eects? Yes No Yes

Country ﬁxed eects? No Yes Yes

Observations 1,045 1,045 1,045

Countries 95 95 95

Time periods 11 11 11

R squared 0.77225 0.41991 0.29008

Model 2 results: Learning outcomes and GDP per capita

Source: EIU analysis

Note: *** represents signiﬁcance at the 1% level; ** represents signiﬁcance at the 5% level; and

* represents signiﬁcance at the 10% level. Standard errors in parentheses

Connecting learners

Narrowing the educational divide

Model 3: School connectivity

and economic growth

The third model assesses the direct link

between school connectivity and economic

growth. While models 1 and 2 allow us to

assess this impact through improvements in

educational outcomes, these models discount

any other channels through which school

connectivity can also support higher levels

of economic growth—for example, through

community development. This third model

is designed to capture these other factors.

As is the case in model 2, our key variable of

interest in this model is growth in GDP per

capita. We hypothesise that this growth is

driven by a number of factors including school

connectivity, measured as discussed above in

model 1. We include the same control variables

as we have included in model 2 to capture

any other factors that may be associated with

growth in GDP beyond school connectivity.

The ﬁndings from the regression analysis

are shown in the table below. We present

the ﬁndings from our preferred model

speciﬁcation under three variations: time-

only ﬁxed eects; country-only ﬁxed

eects; and time and country ﬁxed eects.

Using a Lagrange Multiplier test of these

three variations, our preferred model is

the country-only ﬁxed eects variation.

Dependent variable: GDP per capita (ln)

3.1. Time ﬁxed

eects

3.2. Country

ﬁxed eects

3.3. Time and country

ﬁxed eects

School connectivity (ln) 0.212407**

(0.073378)

0.109235***

(0.022948)

0.055837*

(0.021807)

Learning-adjusted years

of schooling (ln)

0.908090***

(0.090992)

0.370292***

(0.071041)

0.116960

(0.067072)

Investment (ln) 0.851494***

(0.015070)

0.216117***

(0.012512)

0.183997***

(0.01159 4)

Labour force (ln) -0.845526***

(0.016864)

0.120579**

(0.039840)

-0.127633**

(0.041201)

Time ﬁxed eects? Yes No Yes

Country ﬁxed eects? No Yes Yes

Observations 672 672 672

Countries 84 84 84

Time periods 8 8 8

R squared 0.95316 0.51096 0.31372

Model 3 results: School connectivity and GDP per capita

Source: EIU research

Note: *** represents signiﬁcance at the 1% level; ** represents signiﬁcance at the 5% level; and

* represents signiﬁcance at the 10% level. Standard errors in parentheses

Connecting learners

Narrowing the educational divide

Model 4: Broadband speed

and economic growth

The ﬁnal model is independent of the

ﬁrst three models and assesses the link

between the speed of broadband available

to students and economic growth.

The speed of internet connectivity is assessed

using data from EducationSuperHighway’s

State of the States report which provides

data between 2015 and 2019 on the

median bandwidth of internet connectivity

across states in the United States.

243

In addition to broadband speed, we include

a number of controls in the model to

capture other factors which could inﬂuence

GDP per capita at the state level:

• Government expenditure on education in

US$ per capita (based on data obtained from

the National Center of Education Statistics)

• Employment rate (based on data from

the Bureau of Labor Statistics)

• Time ﬁxed eects (to capture time-

speciﬁc eects on learning outcomes)

The ﬁndings from the regression analysis are

shown in the table below. We present the

ﬁndings from our preferred model speciﬁcation

under three variations: time-only ﬁxed eects;

state-only ﬁxed eects; and time and state

ﬁxed eects. Using a Lagrange Multiplier test

of these three variations, our preferred model

is the state-only ﬁxed eects variation.

Dependent variable: GDP per capita (ln)

4.1. Time ﬁxed

eects

4.2. State

ﬁxed eects

4.3. Time and state

ﬁxed eects

Bandwidth per student

(ln)

-0.037903*

(0.017198)

0.0128487***

(0.0033236)

-0.0125565**

(0.0041272)

Expenditure on

education (ln)

0.475433***

(0.042010)

0.1915277***

(0.038086)

0.0556420

(0.0351168)

Employment rate (ln) 1.120329***

(0.127397)

0.4834351***

(0.0956740)

0.3480452***

(0.0794204)

Time ﬁxed eects? Yes No Yes

State ﬁxed eects? No Yes Yes

Observations 250 250 250

States 50 50 50

Time periods 5 5 5

R squared 0.55654 0.53353 0.14611

Model 4 results: Broadband connectivity speed and GDP per capita

Source: EIU research

Note: *** represents signiﬁcance at the 1% level; ** represents signiﬁcance at the 5% level; and

* represents signiﬁcance at the 10% level. Standard errors in parentheses

 EducationSuperHighway (2019). https://stateofthestates.educationsuperhighway.org/?postalCd=AL#state

Connecting learners

Narrowing the educational divide

Impact assessment

Using the ﬁndings from the regression

analysis discussed above, the next step in our

methodology uses scenario analysis to assess

the potential impact on GDP (compared

with baseline measures of GDP) of improved

school connectivity in our key markets of

interest: Brazil, El Salvador, Kyrgyzstan,

Niger, Sierra Leone and the United States.

Baseline analysis

To assess the impacts of improved school

connectivity in the key markets, we ﬁrst

build baseline estimates of economic

indicators which assume no change in the

levels of school connectivity. Our baseline

estimates are obtained from EIU forecasts

of GDP growth across countries.

Scenario analysis

Scenario analysis allows us to assess the

implications of a change in the level of

school connectivity on GDP growth in each

country by applying the ﬁndings from our

regression analysis. For each country, we

assess three alternative scenarios which

hypothesise that the baseline levels of school

connectivity in each country increase to

match the current levels in three reference

countries: Finland, Rwanda and South Korea.

We assess two channels of

impact in each country:

• GDP impacts from improved school

outcomes: Using the ﬁndings from

regression models 1 and 2, we estimate

the impact of a hypothetical change in

school connectivity levels on educational

outcomes in each country, and the

subsequent impact of a change in

educational outcomes on GDP growth.

• GDP impacts through community-level

eects: To capture additional impacts of

school connectivity on GDP growth beyond

the impacts through improved education,

we use the regression results from model

3. Using the same hypothetical changes in

school connectivity levels, we assess the

overall GDP impacts after accounting for

impacts through improved school outcomes.

We aggregate the GDP impacts of

improvements in school connectivity

both through improved school outcomes

and through other channels to obtain an

overall estimate of the GDP impact in

each country relative to the baseline.

United States sub-national analysis

The baseline and scenario analysis discussed

above is used to estimate the potential

gains from improved school connectivity

in all of our key markets for the analysis,

with the exception of the United States.

In the case of the United States, as national-

level connectivity levels are already on

a par with (or above) connectivity levels

observed in our reference markets, scenario

analysis would suggest no impact (or

negative impacts) on GDP of matching

reference market connectivity levels.

Instead, for our analysis in the United States,

we use an alternative sub-national approach

to estimate potential GDP impacts based

on the ﬁndings from regression model 4.

While national-level school connectivity

levels in the United States are relatively high

in comparison with other countries, the

challenge is more in terms of dierences in

connectivity levels across states—and even

more importantly, in terms of the speed of

connectivity. Hence, our analysis assesses

the impact of increasing the speed of school

connectivity across states to both the

national average and the level observed in the

highest-performing state (North Dakota).

Connecting learners

Narrowing the educational divide

Limitations of the analysis

and areas for future work

Empirical approaches to testing the

relationships between dierent variables

based on observational data face a number

of limitations and challenges. Such models

rely on simplifying assumptions which have

implications for the estimated relationships.

The results of the modelling analysis

presented in this report should therefore be

used with caution, and treated as indicative

of the potential impacts of improving

school connectivity. In this section, we

outline some of the key limitations of our

analysis and areas of further research.

• Data availability: A key limitation of the

regression models adopted is the lack of

availability of data. As a result, in many

cases, imperfect proxy indicators need to

be used to assess the relationships being

tested. Furthermore, data gaps need to

be ﬁlled using interpolation techniques.

These adjustments introduce a degree

of measurement error in the analysis and

can bias the outputs of the models.

- School connectivity data: School

connectivity is a key variable of interest

in our analysis to assess the implications

of variation in the level of connectivity

on socioeconomic outcome measures.

However, data availability is highly limited.

This is further challenged by the need for

cross-country data over time in order to

conduct robust econometric modelling. As

a result, the approach relies on an index

measure of school connectivity. While

this provides a sense of the variation in

connectivity across countries and over

time, it has limited interpretability in

the context of policy discussions. We

also test the model with more general

measures of national connectivity. Neither

option—either using an index on school

connectivity, or general measures of

national connectivity—provides a perfect

proxy for the analysis. Future research

could consider developing or exploring

new indicators of school connectivity to

improve the robustness of the analysis and

to assess the direct link between school

connectivity and socioeconomic measures.

- Learning outcomes data: To quantify the

impact of school connectivity on individual

children through improvements in the

quality of education, we assessed the

relationship between school connectivity

and learning outcomes. We used learning

outcomes as a measure to reﬂect the

quality of education which we proxy

based on learning-adjusted school years.

In addition to this being an imperfect

indicator of learning outcomes and

educational quality, a further concern is

that changes in learning-adjusted school

years are likely to impact the availability

of skills in the labour market with a lag

rather than immediately. We partially

accounted for this in the regression models

by testing the relationship between

historical levels of learning-adjusted

school years and subsequent economic

growth. However, there is no justiﬁcation

for imposing an arbitrary lag structure.

• Short-term vs long-term impacts: Given

the limited availability of historical data, the

models primarily capture the short-term

impacts associated with improved school

connectivity. It is reasonable to assume that

while beneﬁts to individual students in terms

of improving school performance may be

relatively immediate, socioeconomic impacts

are likely to arise only with a substantial time

lag. The socioeconomic impacts could be

underestimated by the model as a result.

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• Robustness of econometric speciﬁcations:

There are a number of challenges which

could arise in specifying econometric

regression models. These include reverse

causality (for example, school connectivity

being driven by economic growth, rather

than vice versa) and the omission of

other variables in the regression (mainly

variables which are both related to school

connectivity and economic growth). As a

result, it is not clear whether any estimated

relationships between school connectivity

and economic growth are truly causal in

nature, or whether they simply indicate a

correlation or co-movement between the

variables driven by other factors.

244,245

• Assessing transmission mechanisms: The

econometric analysis conducted indicates

a relationship between school connectivity

and economic outcomes. However, it

does not identify the speciﬁc transmission

mechanisms through which these beneﬁts

arise. We have sought to illustrate at least

one of these transmission mechanisms by

assessing the relationship between school

connectivity and learning outcomes. In

reality, however, the transmissions are

multiple and highly complex. While our

analysis focuses on national-level data, future

research could consider using individual-level

data to identify some of these transmission

mechanisms. This could include, for example,

survey data which tracks individuals over

time to assess the implications of changes

in connectivity levels on individual learning

outcomes and future opportunities. This

approach requires in-depth country-level

data collection over a long period of time.

A similar approach was used in Deloitte

(2016) in the context of Australia.

246

• Assessing country-speciﬁc

macroeconomic impacts: Our approach

uses an econometric regression model

to assess the macroeconomic impacts of

improved school connectivity. While our

model accounts for regional dierences and

dierences in, for example, income levels,

overall, the ﬁndings suggest that a percentage

change in school connectivity has the same

impact on GDP growth in each country. In

reality, the economic structure of a country

will play a signiﬁcant role in the extent to

which improvements in school connectivity

could aect GDP. For example, assuming

that improved school connectivity impacts

GDP through productivity growth, this

productivity growth will impact the economy

dierently depending on the sectoral make-

up, the existing skills in the workforce and

other factors. An alternative approach to

modelling the macroeconomic impacts could

use a computable general equilibrium (CGE)

model to account for the speciﬁc nuances in

each country in order to model the impacts

of expansion of school connectivity.

 Deloitte (2016), “The economic impact of improving school quality”. https://docs.education.gov.au/system/files/doc/other/ecoimpactschoolquality.pdf

 Hanushek, E. and Woessmann, L. (2012), “Do better schools lead to more growth? Cognitive skills, economic outcomes, and causation”, J

Econ Growth (2012) 17:267–321. https://hanushek.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/publications/Hanushek%2BWoessmann%202012%20

JEconGrowth%2017%284%29.pdf

 Deloitte (2016), “The economic impact of improving school quality”. https://docs.education.gov.au/system/files/doc/other/ecoimpactschoolquality.pdf

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