- In recent months in Sweden, discussions have been taking place on the role played by computers and screens in classrooms, many experts have been asked to report and the strategy of digitising schools has been decided to be suspended. They will spend EUR 150 million on the recovery of paper textbooks.
Reports by the Government of more than 60 experts in the hand have concluded that research so far shows that screen education does not benefit children's brains. Health-related recommendations have also been taken into account, and Education Minister Lotta Edholm pointed out that the aim is for students to spend less time in front of the screen and have more textbooks on paper.
In Sweden, screens have been replacing textbooks and now want to turn the situation around: ensuring a book per student and subject. To this end, the government will invest EUR 150 million in the purchase of textbooks (EUR 60 million this year and EUR 45 million in 2024 and 2025). “The tablet cannot replace the advantages of the textbook,” explains Edholm.
The Minister of Education is particularly concerned about the loss of the ability to understand what children and young people read.
In Sweden, screens have been replacing textbooks and now aim to turn the situation around: ensuring a book per student and subject
At the heart of the debate
The Minister of Education said that the digitisation of schools was carried out without any criticism and that it was assessed directly as positive without regard to its content. In fact, they have asked in the French state that the digitisation being carried out in schools is half the debate and that the impacts of this digitisation process be measured: “We have made the digital device the privileged or unique element of learning, encouraging students to use these devices for everything and everything, not turning children into informed users but captive consumers subjected to algorithms.”