Nordic students are doing increasingly bad. Is digitalization to blame?

Sweden’s plans to replace books with computers in its classrooms have failed, according to the country's Minister of Education, Lotta Edholm.

Edholm said the government was alarmed at Sweden's poor results in the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS), which found that over the past five years, Swedish children's reading comprehension skills had dropped from high to intermediate.

photo: Emily Wade/Unsplash

Because of this, the Swedish government announced it will back away from computers and bring back textbooks.

The Swedish government will provide funding for textbook distribution to guarantee each student one book per subject, with the aim of strengthening reading culture in schools and reducing screen time, the minister said.

The center-right government announced that it would allocate 685 million kronor ($64 million) this year and 500 million ($47 million) per year in 2024 and 2025 in order to accelerate the return of textbooks to schools.

Through this measure, Sweden aims to compete with neighboring Finland for the global attention of educators and education professionals.

Edholm (pictured) stressed that this is a step towards bringing reading back to school, shifting the focus away from screens and towards printed books.

However, many experts are questioning if digitalization is the sole reason why Sweden’s test results have dropped.

Since 2013, Sweden, as well as its Nordic neighbors, considered the countries with the best education in Europe, have registered increasingly worse results in other tests that measure, not only reading comprehension but also science and math skills.

But in 2020, the Swedish daily ‘Expressen’ uncovered a fraud scandal: education authorities had tried to falsify the Swedish results for 2018.

Furthermore, experts say Swedish authorities were merely concentrating on the test results with no specific statistics that show how the digitalization plan affected Swedish students, reported French newspaper Le Monde.

Several studies have shown that internet access can have a positive impact on students wishing to explore different subjects and technology can make them better at multitasking and problem solving.

However, studies have also shown the negative effects of technology on children, such as social interaction issues and lower attention span.

Experts also admit it may be too early to judge the consequences of digital de-escalation because they have no other examples of countries that have done it and studied its effects.

Be that as it may, other countries will be watching Sweden closely as legislators, teachers, and education policymakers around the world face the same problem.

If Sweden wants to keep its good reputation in education, experts say, they will also need to prepare students for a digital world where technologies like artificial intelligence are fast evolving.

It remains to be seen how legislation and projects in this regard will develop worldwide. With the growing importance of digitization in education, all governments and educational institutions will surely strive to find innovative solutions to prepare their students for the challenges of the modern technological world.