Do pupils benefit?

Digital school: Court of Audit misses results

Subsidized laptops are now part of the basic equipment in Austrian schools and teachers are provided with devices free of charge. However, the hardware purchased with taxpayers' money is sometimes not even used by teachers.

(Bild: stock.adobe.com)

The Austrian Court of Audit (ACA) has failed to measure the concrete effects of the government's digital school initiative on pupils' skills. For example, it is unclear whether the distribution of inexpensive notebooks and tablets to children or free devices to teachers or the expansion of the IT infrastructure at schools has led to better skills. The Court of Audit does not have a good opinion of the Digital School portal, which has since been discontinued.

At the end of the first COVID lockdown, the government presented an 8-point plan for a digital school. The best-known point of this is the issue of inexpensive or free digital devices to pupils in the fifth grade (especially first grade AHS/middle school). However, in a report published on Friday, the Court of Audit criticized that no results-oriented goals were associated with this, which could be used to check whether the Ministry of Education's expenditure has had the desired effect. However, in implementation of an ACA recommendation, the Ministry did take part in an international comparative study (International Computer and Information Literacy Study (ICILS)) in 2023, the results of which will not be available until the end of 2024.

Another point of criticism from the auditors: although the pupils were provided with devices, it was not specified how they should be used educationally. As a result, the actual implementation at the schools varied and ranged from cross-curricular use to use only in IT lessons.

Free devices sometimes not used at all
The free devices for teachers were also not used across the board, as checks in Carinthia and Lower Austria revealed. In Carinthia, four percent of teacher devices in the AHS sector were only configured for the first time during the RH survey, while this information could not be collected for a further eleven percent. In other words: 15 percent of the devices were not verifiably activated. No data was available at all for Lower Austria. Speaking of missing data: Neither the ministry nor the two education directorates audited had an overview of teachers' digital skills.

The equipment with devices was the largest cost item in the 8-point plan. In total, the Ministry of Education spent a good 140.9 million euros on this between January 2021 and August 2023. 119.7 million of this went towards devices. Revenue from the retention fee, on the other hand, amounted to 21.7 million euros. The ministry spent around 16.7 million euros on additional teaching staff in the two school years covered, as well as 1.3 million euros on administrative staff.

95 percent of eligible schools took part in the device initiative, with 236,039 devices being distributed. In order to participate, each school had to develop its own digitization concept. The Court of Audit saw this as a good thing, but criticized delays in quality management. As a result, audits were difficult and digital lessons were designed very differently.

Cost explosion for the "Digital School Portal"
 The Court of Audit devoted a separate section to the "Digital School Portal" ministry project, which has since been discontinued. This was intended to bundle the digital communication channels between teachers, pupils and parents - a consulting firm was commissioned to do this. Not only did it fall far short of the hoped-for number of users, but the costs exploded: instead of the estimated three million euros, four times as much was spent.

The ministry invested 18.3 million euros in the expansion of the basic school IT infrastructure. According to the Court of Audit, however, it did not measure the actual progress. The Court of Audit also called for a better response to delays and cost increases in ongoing projects.

Ministry points to "strong innovation boost"
 In a reaction on Friday, the Ministry of Education highlighted the "strong innovation boost" provided by the 8-point plan. The concrete results included, for example, "comprehensive online training opportunities". Both short-term and long-term measures have been implemented and will be monitored on an ongoing basis. The Ministry intends to closely examine the RH report "in order to identify further potential for improvement".

FPÖ education spokesman Hermann Brückl, on the other hand, identified "the next costly failure of ÖVP education policy". The 8-point plan was a "single expensive failure that completely missed the educational goals". The Freedom Party had criticized the plan from the outset.

Douglas Hoyos, Secretary General and spokesperson for the NEOS, also criticized the plan in a press release: "The Minister of Education has overslept the digitalization of Austria's schools." He lamented the lack of mandatory further training in digital didactics for teachers and called for "courageous reforms" from a new government.