Project 3: ICT in Education

Contacts:

	Dr Sandra McNally, CEE and CEP. Tel: +44(0)20 7955 7579 Email: s.mcnally1@lse.ac.uk
	Professor Peter Dolton, Royal Holloway, CEP and CEE Associate. Tel:+44(0)20 7955 6441 Email: peter.dolton@rhul.ac.uk

The importance of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in the productivity and competitiveness of the skilled British workforce cannot be overstated. It is therefore vital for us to understand the impact of ICT of educational and labour market outcomes and the processes through which these links operate.

This project studies the connections between ICT and education at a number of stages of the education sequence and later progress in the labour market. In recent years schools have received substantial additional funding to improve their IT infrastructure. In order to evaluation the effectiveness of this investment this project explores the impact of ICT on pupil attainment. The project also considers the influence of ICT beyond compulsory schooling, in particular to evaluate the returns to these skills in the youth labour market. This part of the project will also study the relationship between the acquisition of ICT skills and other labour market skills and the role that these skills play in the labour market will be placed in context.

The issue of computers in schools is a controversial one. For example, among policymakers it is widely believed that ICT investment has an important role to play in raising educational standards. However, most economic research on the question fails to report positive effects, largely because it is a significant research challenge to establish a causal relation between ICT and pupil achievement. Machin, McNally and Silva do identify a positive causal impact. Their papers examine the relationship between changes in ICT investment and changes in educational performance in Local Education Authorities (LEAs). The causality problem is overcome by making use of a change in the rules about how ICT funds were allocated to different LEAs. In contrast with most previous studies in the economic literature, there is evidence for a positive impact of ICT investment on educational performance in primary schools. A positive effect is observed for English and Science, though not for Mathematics. These positive results are reconciled with others in the literature that fail to find ICT effects, by showing that it is the joint effect of large increases in ICT funding coupled with a fertile background for making efficient use of it that led to positive effects. The most fertile background in the 2000 data studied was where large investments in ICT were made by primary schools which had previously had none.

The labour market compenent of this project project addresses the question of what is the rate of return to earnings of using IT skills at work. The earning premium for using different IT skills, in different IT functions, and to different intensities has been studied. Results by Dolton and Pelkonen suggest that after netting out for all factors and controlling fo occupation and workplace specific effects, the premium on computer use could still be as high as 3%. There is also evidence (Dolton, Makepeace and Robinson) that what a worker uses a computer for matters at the workplace. Most interestingly the premium for being able to use email and other communication tools is found to be robust across a variety of different datasets.

Related Discussion Papers:

New Technology in Schools: Is There a Payoff?
Stephen Machin, Sandra McNally, Olmo Silva, January 2006
Paper No' CEEDP0055: | Full paper (free)

Use IT or Lose IT? The Impact of Computers on Earnings
Peter Dolton, Gerry Makepeace, Helen Robinson, June 2007
Paper No' CEEDP0082: Read Abstract | Full paper (free)

The Impact of Computer Use, Computer Skills and Computer Use Intensity: Evidence from WERS 2004.
Peter Dolton, Panu Pelkonen, August 2007
Paper No' CEEDP0081: Read Abstract | Full paper (free)