EdTech: Why the project-based approach must change in order to contribute to system resilience

Abstract

This viewpoint article argues that there is an urgent need to reform the project-based EdTech approach in order to allow EdTech to contribute to the resilience of education systems in the aftermath of Covid-19. Looking at the contrast between the multiplication of EdTech pilot projects presented as a necessary step in a process that will eventually lead to scaled solutions and the lack of solutions that actually scale, the article highlights those long-standing issues perceived as most pressing by the actors involved in project-based EdTech initiatives. Their perspective and statements allow one to grasp how the EdTech project approach favors the setup of EdTech projects that are by design unscalable, driven by a utopian perception of scalability and instrumentalized in the name of a goal that is de facto only a branding. As a result, and despite the mobilization of tremendous resources, the EdTech project-based approach cannot be system-transformative.