• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
TDM Insights

TDM Insights

Tourism Destination Management

  • Categories
    • Corporate Social Responsibility
    • Cultural Heritage
    • Destination Management
    • Destination Image
    • Destination Resilience
    • Innovation
    • Place-making
    • Sustainability
    • Technology
    • Tourism Ethics
    • Tourism Stakeholders
  • Issues
    • Issue V – 2021
    • Issue IV – 2020
    • Special Issue – EIFMeT Masterclass
    • Issue III – 2019
    • Issue II – 2018
    • Issue I – 2017
  • News/events
  • Contact
  • About
You are here: Home / Special Issue - EIFMeT Masterclass / ICT4E: Information and Communication Technologies for Education

ICT4E: Information and Communication Technologies for Education

26th August 2021 by Felix Fröhlich

Introduction

2020 is a special year for all of us. The Corona pandemic has caused the biggest disruption of the educational system in history (UN, 2020). For us as students that means that we participate in the European IFITT Masterclass on eTourism online, as well as spending the whole semester in front of the screen. Without ICT’s this wouldn’t be possible. Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) are more and more available, even in developing countries. Since the 1980’s it is believed that ICT’s are a magic bullet that improves learning and education (Cuban, 2004). This can include education in tourism and hospitality. But can ICT really improve the learning quality? Or do they increase the “digital divide”? (Wagner, 2017).

The United Nations have declared 17 sustainable development goals in order to transform our world. One of them is quality education (UN, 2020). Once more, the pandemic has shown us how important ICT’s are in terms of education. Current figures show that over 1.6 billion people have been out of school in times of corona – which has an impact on over 91 per cent of the students around the globe (UN, 2020). The German government has just provided a quarter billion Euros to digitalize German schools (Bundesregierung, 2020). In Mexico the classes are held via TV, as it is the medium which has the biggest reach.

The world of education before Covid-19

The educational systems around the globe have always been facing intimidating challenges in order to force quality education as a human right. According to data of 2018, over 250 million children are out of school and over 850 of them are illiterates (UIS, 2018). Yet being in school does not guarantee a quality education, as around 387 million children lack basic reading skills (UIS, 2017). From a financial point of view, in the beginning of 2020, an estimate of 148 billion dollar will be missing to fulfil the SDG N. 4 – Quality Education (UNESCO, 2020).

The world of education during Covid-19

As mentioned earlier, the impact of the pandemic on the educational system has reached an unimagined extent. Many educational institutes aimed to maintain programs through online schooling. However, ownership is a major limitation for access to distance learning. Many students in developing countries do not have access to the internet nor do they possess a personal computer or tablet. The pandemic therefore disservice education and limits the aims of the SDG No. 4. This causes the need for more childcare, higher economic costs and the dropout rate of schools worldwide (Filho et al., 2020).

Many governments reacted quickly to the pandemic by closing the schools, protecting the pupils and, on the other hand, trying to support the continuation of the learning process online through online educational platforms (Jandric, 2020). However, the unequal allocation of learning conditions during the closures will likely increase the inequality of education in the long term (UN, 2020). The next graphic shows the most common practices and tools used for distance learning during the pandemic (mostly ICTs). As visible, distance learning in high income countries is estimated to have a 80-85% reach, whereas data of low income countries show a reach of less than 50% (TCG, UNESCO, 2020).

Source: UNESCO-UNICEF-World Bank joint database, May-June 2020 http://tcg.uis.unesco.org/survey-education-covid-school-closures/

An example on how ICT can improve education

Putting the pandemic aside and taking a concrete look on how ICT can be implemented into education, an experiment in Niger has tested the ability to learn with mobile phones. A problem emerged with adult education was the low level of enrolment and the high dropout rates (Ortega and Rodriguez, 2008). Nevertheless, the results of a study by Aker confirmed that mobile phones can be an effective and low-cost tool to improve educational outcomes. Furthermore, they can be used in rural areas and be utilized in daily life. Yet there are many factors that can influence a positive impact on the quality of education, such as telecommunication infrastructure, educational materials available in the mother tongue and the price (Aker et al., 2012).

Conclusion

Overall, it is fair to say that ICTs have brought new dynamics into the education sector, offering a lot of opportunities in order to reach the fourth goal of the SDGs – Quality Education. Yet it also brings threats to people with low income. As ICTs usually involve an economic factor, this can lead to a so called ‘digital divide’. Furthermore, the Covid-19 pandemic was a complete game changer to the whole world, but also for the educational system around the globe (including education in tourism and hospitality). Over 1.5 billion pupils were out of school. Therefore, we must be careful and not compromise the education of a whole generation due to this crisis. Nevertheless, ICT has shown that it can compensate regular schooling in some parts, and it can play a major role in the future by providing access to knowledge and making the world more sustainable.

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Recommended For You

Editorial: Learnings from the EIFMeT Masterclass 2020
Can ICT offer solutions to overtourism?
Smart Tourism Reducing Poverty and Inequality
Post Views: 291

Filed Under: Special Issue - EIFMeT Masterclass Tagged With: Education, EIFMeT, ICT, personal development, SDGs, technologies, tourism education

Secondary Sidebar

Author

Felix Fröhlich
Student at the Eberswalde University for Sustainable Development

Do you have a response?

We aim to be a forum for dialogue on issues connected with tourism destination management, so please contact us if you would like to write a response to one of the articles in the journal.

More to see

The Digital Bow – Empowering initiatives of indigenous community-based tourism during a pandemic

12th December 2021 By Anna Maria Freitag

From an online journey to a physical presence in a destination: digital strategies for the recovery of the industry post-COVID19. The case of the Van Gogh Sites Foundation

12th December 2021 By Talita Lemes & Celiane Camargo-Borges

Tags

AIDA theory animal welfare awareness changes citizen empowerment community-based community involvement COVID-19 Crisis customer journey decision making Destination Management destination recovery digital dog management programme EIFMeT ethnography feedback Free-roaming dogs Greece greenwashing iceberg model ICT Indonesia investment local context locals management marketing multi-stakeholder overtourism residents Rhodes rural shared space social impacts Sustainability Sustainable tourism technology tourism education tourism growth tourist-animal encounters travel advice travel experience Urban tourism

Footer

About TDM Insights

The Master in Tourism Destination Management is proud to present its own online journal “TDM Insights”. The journal is an opportunity for selected programme alumni to present a summary of their master dissertations. BUAS lectureres and other academics and practicioners discuss their work and evaluate their contribution to the tourism literature. Moreover, the editors of TDM Insights invite tourism professionals and experts from other industries to contribute columns on contemporary issues in tourism and destination management.

Recent

  • Editorial – Issue V
  • The Digital Bow – Empowering initiatives of indigenous community-based tourism during a pandemic
  • From an online journey to a physical presence in a destination: digital strategies for the recovery of the industry post-COVID19. The case of the Van Gogh Sites Foundation
  • Work-Integrated Learning: an approach to facilitate continuous innovation in higher tourism education
  • The future of work

Search

Keywords

AIDA theory animal welfare awareness changes citizen empowerment community-based community involvement COVID-19 Crisis customer journey decision making Destination Management destination recovery digital dog management programme EIFMeT ethnography feedback Free-roaming dogs Greece greenwashing iceberg model ICT Indonesia investment local context locals management marketing multi-stakeholder overtourism residents Rhodes rural shared space social impacts Sustainability Sustainable tourism technology tourism education tourism growth tourist-animal encounters travel advice travel experience Urban tourism

Copyright © 2023 · Magazine Pro on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in