SA’s pursuit of equality through handing out screens in class risks educational quality

With the digital revolution in the 1990s, cognitive research has shifted towards the impact of screens on education. Fast forward to the Covid pandemic and research began to reveal the impact they were having on reading ability. Beginning with literacy – a skill needing time for deep reading – cognitive scientists like Maryanne Wolf worried that “digital media encourages us to get as much information as we can, as fast as we can, and often while multitasking”. She noted further that “sequencing of information and memory for detail change for the worse when subjects are read on a screen”. Denmark education minister Mattias Tesfaye framed his recent removal of phones and tablets from schools as “reclaiming the school as an educational space”. In support, the Danish government has allocated 540 million DKK (R1.4 billion) over 10 years to reintroduce hard-copy textbooks and roll back tech in class. And, as I type, I’ve learnt of the prescriptive move for public high school students in Los Angeles: 10 hours a week on screens. This includes time spent on homework.As international schools respond to the idea that classroom technology automatically means better education, South Africa’s tech goal is running a different race: the pursuit of equality through a digital handout. More specifically, screens. The spirit of “paperless classrooms” and the 2020 National Digital and Future Skills Strategies initiatives remain very much alive. Yet on this road, where the quantity of screens is conflated with educational quality, two fundamental questions are overlooked: are screens actually answering their pedagogical purpose? And, if not, are we fixating on screens at the expense of values-centred education? Why the move towards screens? In conversation with various schools, the introduction of personal devices began around 2017 and 2018 and fortuitously allowed learning to continue through the Covid pandemic. The reasons for their necessity were:The improvement of technology in the classroom;Content accessibility;The ability to ban smartphones and replace them with laptops and Chromebooks; andDigital literacy in the 21st century.On the back of this, fervent momentum developed to digitise education, and research largely focused on how screens could improve learning, assuming a priori that they would. Less attention was given to the potential role they would play in classroom distraction and digital dependance. Concerns were cast aside as the inevitable trade-off for digital progress. Phrases like “Fourth Industrial Revolution”, “Covid loss” and “future readiness” echoed through school corridors until whatever the digital cat brought in became essential for pupils. But since then South African high schools requiring personal screens have spent nearly a decade with them. In that time, research and empirical evidence have stacked up.The evidenceSince 2016, South African reading scores reflected research on the impact of screens on education following the digital revolution in the 1990s, until, in 2021, initiatives like the Revised National Reading Plan (RNRP) were inaugurated. Naturally, much of the cause was linked to the Covid pandemic. But what was overlooked was the new role screens were playing as primary literature providers to pupils. Now back at school, with laptops and Chromebooks ever present, there is little coincidence that higher order results – those requiring deeper reading – are getting weaker. Between 2021 and 2025 the results showed a similar decline. Yet constant access to personal screens undoubtedly affects more than reading. And there are good reasons for this. Developmental psychologist Laurence Steinberg describes adolescence as a period in which the brain’s reward system develops before the networks of self-control. Consequently, the distraction caused by screens is not only the product of adolescent biology. It is the interaction between a developing brain and technology deliberately designed to capture attention.Attention, please!Digital distraction is a different ball game: it is intense, frequent and always relevant. Large chunks of my mathematics lessons at school were spent looking at birds. But eventually they flew away. Screens don’t. Instead, they bring another video, another message, another game, another notification, another “there must be something better if I search!” Screens are not birds, they are nests. And when rewards and peer acceptance are up for grabs, they scream until they have attention. Social psychologist Jonothan Haidt writes: “This never-ending stream of interruptions, this constant fragmentation of attention takes a toll on adolescents’ ability to think.” This is understandable when an average adolescent receives 240 notifications a day – a quarter of these during school hours. While schools are beginning to withdraw smartphones, laptops and Chromebooks arrive as Trojan horses bringing the same distractions. I recall an email from a mother who wrote: “They are surfing the net, listening to Spotify, perusing Pinterest, watching YouTube shorts, emailing each other, shopping online, playing games and sharing secret messages on chat rooms!” These realities are not isolated to our school but a trend many teachers are grappling with. One incident had me print pages and pages of dialogue between two students only to find that the time stamp revealed a 45-minute online conversation in a one-hour lesson.As research becomes more nuanced it corroborates these experiences. A recent Programme for International Student Assessment report (PISA), for example, revealed that 51% of pupils use digital devices at least one to three times per class, primarily for non-academic activities. These include texting (22%), social networking (14%) and the more nuanced idea of “checking the time” (41%). Interestingly, the primary benefits of using digital devices were staying connected (29%), entertainment (20%) and alleviating boredom (20%). Its most cited negative was a reduction in attention (69%).Haidt aptly summarises this quandary: “Adults can’t pay attention, so how the hell do we expect [pupils] to pay attention when they have an iPad or a Chromebook on their desk? The best thing we can do for education is get devices off the desks.”Given this, it is necessary to ask whether high schools are fostering digital dependence over digital learning. Pupils arriving in class and, by default, opening their Chromebook is not synonymous with digital learning. The same could be said when a pupil uses AI to develop a game supposedly relevant to a particular subject. These are distractions; pedagogical interruptions rather than “future-ready” opportunities. But don’t we need them? Undoubtedly, screens will need a place in the classroom. But we cannot equate that to placing one in the hands of every pupil. Educational quality and personal screens are not synonyms, nor can the latter become South Africa’s equity or educational panacea. Especially while their effectiveness in learning remains an open question and, certainly, when their distribution has proved nigh impossible in South African high schools. Reflecting on the four reasons given by schools, none of these sincerely requires screens as pupil imperatives. There are other, more useful means of ensuring technology is used in the classroom. Smartboards, for example, are useful in their ability to engage pupils while also keeping their focus on the front of the classroom. Dedicated rooms, equipped with laptops, would still make research possible and become devoted learning centres, overseen by staff. However, if personal screens are necessary, then their introduction should at least be gradual. There is a vast difference between a 13- and 18-year-old, biologically and cognitively. The former needs strong learning foundations, and this requires limited distraction. In all of this, interaction between schools and tech companies is necessary. Huawei South Africa deputy CEO Charles Cheng argued recently that successful digital education depends on investment in teachers and on fostering collaboration between them and industry professionals; not simply handing devices to pupils. Investment like this would provide healthier platforms for learning, curbing the passive use of screens to allow focused, professional and more beneficial ways to use them.Values: the heart of education Yet even with such mitigating efforts in place, it is hard not to feel that education is being bullied by a tech industry flaunting its tools as imperatives. Keeping up has become the accepted orthodoxy. But in doing so there is a vacuum in education today; a dehumanised version with little formative substance. If the only purpose of education were the transmission of information, then perhaps a digital classroom would be the answer. But that is not the heart of education. In every South African classroom sits the next generation of human beings; young, restless and extremely impressionable. They need values before they need personal screens, otherwise they will use these to create their own. Apart from the impact they have on pedagogy, perhaps their most sobering consequence, then, is their reduction of the opportunities for pupil connectedness. In the same PISA report, pupils exposed to screens during the school day also reported a lower sense of belonging. Of course, screens are not the only cause. But they fuel the issue rather than tame it. Appreciating this, James Malley succinctly writes: “Like it or not, the rapidly changing demographics of society have shattered traditional sources of belonging… the growing transience and mobilisation of society have left children with a sense of feeling disconnected… yet while we boast about the great technological achievements, we are witnessing a sense of alienation and apathy among our youth that is unprecedented.” It is difficult to read this without reflecting on what the true burden of high schools in South Africa should be. Education is not simply the focus on what pupils can do, but the moulding of who they become. In their five impressionable high school years we must teach them to ask what is good, what is true and whether the choices they make are wise. Aims like these give them a value system and, beyond mere digital literacy, teach them how to discern truth in a landscape governed by screens; a world curated by subjective and hollow truths. As such, they can take their place in society and become a blessing in this world. Perhaps this is what countries abroad are beginning to see, and what Denmark’s education minister meant when asking his schools to “reclaim their educational space”. When education prioritises this, it will answer what Tsepo Ngwenyama writes it must do: solve real problems, improve outcomes and ensure that the solutions are accessible to all South African pupils. This before technology for technology’s sake. DM