Written by COBIS Supporting Associates The EduTec Alliance. Selected as COBIS’ Digital Advisory Partner, The EduTec Alliance supports the International K12 Schools sector in its creation and implementation of their digital strategies.

As COBIS’ Digital Advisory Partner, members frequently ask for our opinion on where the digital world is heading in relation to K12 education. We thought it would be useful to formalise our thoughts in an annual summary to be published prior to the long vacation, giving leadership the opportunity to consider its implications for their school and develop an action plan for the new academic year.

We consider international schools as small, but complex, businesses providing a service to their communities with the additional responsibility for safeguarding their charges.  Our research shows that expenditure on digital technology is currently 4-5% of turnover, which equates to an average of $1million per year.  This figure covers licenses, staffing and training for both the Administrative and Educational functions of the school.  From a digital perspective, these two functions are intrinsically linked, as the main platforms (e.g. Student Information System (SIS), Productivity Platform (Google/Microsoft)) are common to both.  However, whilst the business benefits of digital technologies for Administration are well accepted, those for Education are not (graphic below). Countless studies by the OECD and other respected institutions have failed to identify a causal relationship between edtech and learning outcomes – sometimes quite the opposite.

(Business Rationale for EdTech (Source: The EduTec Alliance)

Schools are struggling to define their digital futures.  Our education system was without digital technology for 200 years, with it for 20 and now AI for 2. Schools are simply not resourced or prepared to deal with this exponential growth in the pace of change.

1. Tendencies 

1.1 Screen Time

The backlash against the use of digital devices in schools is well underway, with many banning the use of mobile phones during the school day and the contents of Jonathan Haidt’s book ‘The Anxious Generation’ reverberating with parents.  We also note that some of the Nordic countries (Denmark, Norway & Sweden) are swinging back to textbooks as a result of their recent ‘Knowledge Collapse’ experience.

Whilst the prohibition of mobile phones should improve student engagement and interaction, the rationale for their removal (e.g. the mechanisms of addiction of social media) should be taught as part of Digital Literacy initiatives.  Additionally, the use of dedicated digital devices should be continued as part of the school’s aim to instil basic Digital Competencies.

It is worth noting that the complaints from parents regarding a supposed correlation between screentime and worsening eyesight have reduced.  The message from the medical studies illustrating the negative impact of too much time indoors (i.e. a lack of exposure to strong sunlight necessary for healthy eye development) appears to be permeating.

1.2  AI

We now appear to have passed through the initial AI frenzy in the edtech space, with the market resolving itself.  The ability to rapidly develop an application as a thin wrapper around OpenAI’s ChatGPT (and obtain funding for it) lead to the market becoming quickly saturated with undifferentiated ‘me-to’ offerings.

Over the past year we have collaborated with several international schools to attempt to gauge the reality of incorporating AI in K12 education.  The common themes that have emerged so far are;

• A conviction that AI is here to stay and needs to be incorporated into day-to-day school operation; policies, competencies, training etc,
• An underlying concern regarding the ethical and environmental implications of AI,
• An absence of proven use case benefits.  Teacher time saving or improved educational outcomes are not yet visible,
• A reluctance to commit long term to any one AI tool, given the fluidity of the AI market in general and the recent improvement in offerings from the main productivity platform providers (Microsoft, Google). Our ‘glacier’ analogy from 2024 (graphic below) appears to be holding true with many of the initial product offerings falling by the wayside, participant schools have reviewed many tools, but have triaged down to focus on one or two for day to day use and AI Literacy training,
• Experimentation with in-house hosted models to allow for customisation and ensure data protection.

AI Glacier (Source: EduTec Alliance, Microsoft CoPilot)

From an AI Industry perspective, the above make sense.  There are indications that large LLMs are becoming more hallucinatory and indeed sycophantic.  The latter property recently caused OpenAI to roll back one of its recent releases of ChatGPT.  Given the unstable nature of the models which lie at the core of most AI edtech products, schools are right to be cautious.  2025 is predicted to see the level of AI generated content on the internet rise to 90%, which means that future AI models will be predominantly trained on their own output!

1.3 Data Privacy

The Common Sense report ‘2023 State of Kids Privacy’ found that 73% of the edtech industry was ‘selling data’ without properly disclosing the fact in their privacy policy.  This concern has only been exacerbated by the arrival of the new AI powered tools since the report was released.

Another cause for concern is the evolution of cyber crime from attacks focused just on ransom to those which ‘double-dip’.  This is the industry term for a breach where data is exfiltrated – sometimes over the period of months – and then the victim’s systems are encrypted for ransom.  The research shows that fewer organisations are paying for de-encryption, and so the cyber criminals are looking for an additional revenue stream.  Exfiltrated data is being sold on the dark-web and used for reputational damage blackmail – with clients being directly contacted.  The 2024 average cost of recovery from a successful cyber-attack has risen to around $4.5million according to IBM.

Schools are increasingly susceptible to cyber-attack as they increase their ‘attack surface areas’ by the addition of new technologies.  Their high value data (think contacts, financial, academic, medical, safeguarding) makes them of particular interest to the cyber criminals, and yet they mostly cannot afford/do not prioritise topflight cyber protection.

Phishing remains one of the top entry routes for cyber criminals, with the school community being the weakest link in the chain.  Cyber awareness training should be an integral part of all digital competency activity.  With the advent of Generative AI, the apparent authenticity and volume of phishing exploits is increasing dramatically as is the ability for the cyber criminals to produce novel malware code.

1.4 Digital Literacy and Competencies

Digital Literacy and the related competencies have never been more necessary – for the whole school community. Students, staff and parents all need to develop the necessary skills for a digital life – this must cover how to use, the limitations and how to keep safe.

The pressing need for digital skills development has been exacerbated by the rapid evolution of GenAI and the lowering of barriers to entry.  As an example, Google has dropped the age limit for Gemini access to 13, and even this restriction has been lifted if children are included in its ‘Family Link’ programme – where parents are expected to provide oversight.

An emerging trend is to lower the age of access in schools, with a recent Fortune article reporting that China’s 6 year olds are receiving AI & Computing lessons and CEOs of 250 major US companies are demanding the same for fear of falling behind.

2. Guidance 

Our 25/26 digital guidance can be summed up in a single word: Consolidation.  This isn’t necessarily a defensive strategy, but one of cautious preparation for a digital future where the pace of change is only set to accelerate.

There are three interrelated and self-reinforcing strands to address:

• Digital Literacy & Competencies
• EdTech Rationalisation
• Cyber Security

Our reasoning is as follows.  Strengthening the school community’s Digital Competencies already adds value as discussed above, but training will also reduce the risk of a data breach – especial via phishing– the main way the cyber criminals gain access.  There are many Digital Competency frameworks available, with the European Union’s Digital Competence Framework for Educators (DigCompEdu) being a reference model.  The European Union also publishes an aligned Digital Competence Framework for Citizens (DigComp).

As a side note, we would advise that schools treat AI as a generic competency, rather than train deeply on any particular tool or vendor.  The AI market is moving at such a pace, and with such volatility, that very few industry sectors can keep up, if any.  Earlier this month, the EU and OECD published a draft version of their AI Literacy Framework for Primary and Secondary Education, which we highly recommend.

A second initiative to reduce the risk of a successful cyber-attack is to minimise the school’s ‘attack surface area’ – the potential entry points for cyber criminals.  Our work with international schools has revealed that their tech stacks usually consist of well over one hundred different components & applications – the vast majority of which are connected to the internet and provide potential access for the bad actors.  It’s also not uncommon for schools to be paying for 5-6 applications which perform the same function, but the majority of which are rarely used if at all.  Rationalising the edtech stack has benefits beyond improving cyber security and reducing operational expense.  It allows the school community to become skilled at using a core set of components well, rather than a plethora averagely.  This supports a deepening of Digital Competencies and improvement in operational efficiency across the organisation.

Our research indicates that around 10% of edtech related operational costs can be saved by rationalisation, translating to $100,000 per year for the average international school.  We recommend that these savings are used to enhance Digital Competencies and fund the strengthening of cyber security through relevant training and professional support in the identification of potential vulnerabilities.

Unfortunately, this blog post is only able to scratch the surface of the digital challenges that international schools are currently facing.  Our website contains a library of free resources, including ‘how-to’ videos, templates and interviews.  If you’d like to discuss in more detail, then please reach out to us at hello@edutecalliance.com.