Management Team and Institutional Framework
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career development. They should also see their training as a pedagogical opportunity to improve and broaden their students’ learning environment and thus regard themselves as key players in the modernization of the educational
system and of society at large. School administrators and school owners should perceive the introduction of ICT as a necessary modernization
effort for their schools as well as an opportunity to attract new parents looking for more modern learning environments for their children
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. School administrators can play an influential role in fostering teacher attitudes towards innovation and ICT use in classrooms. Too often, administrators are either passive or actively against ICT
initiatives, mainly due to cost. They perceive technology as expensive devices that will consume scarce resources as well as distract teachers’ time, without evident short-term returns.
It has been important to address these issues as part of the ICT policy, with realistic solutions and arguments in order to gain the administrator’s approval and commitment. The importance of this effort cannot be over-emphasized;
otherwise, after the initial excitement about the technology wears off, administrators may gradually build subtle barriers against new technology i.e. locked technology rooms for safety reasons, withdrawal of incentives for
teacher training, focusing on alternative projects, and reducing budgeting for supplies and hardware maintenance. An important message to school administrators was that they should not simply promote the use of the technology
by teachers and students; rather, they should regard themselves as key players, supporting actively and explicitly every initiative from teachers to improve learning with ICT. To carry out this policy, administrators need to know
the costs and benefits, and the incentives for the schools. They should also be promptly informed of the results of evaluation studies, especially those of their own schools.
Private sector entrepreneurs and businesspersons can become active allies in many ways. This is partly due to their interest in improving the future labor force to become more competitive. Also, helping education can be a
marketing strategy to improve a brand’s image or to invest in students as consumers. Also, the private sector normally associates ICT with productivity enhancement and modernization. Two initiatives that seem effective in
other countries are special tax deductions i.e. for donating computers to schools and a strong communications strategy to stimu late support to schools from the private sector.
Businesses are normally inclined to support schools in their surroundings vocational schools in particular and therefore small and medium-sized businesses should be considered as potential donors by a special communication
campaign. Hardware and software donations, expert help, hardware maintenance, free Internet and hardware supplies, would all be welcome. National and international funding agencies and local authorities should also be
targeted for help on all these areas of need.
Enlaces received from Telefónica CTC, the largest telecommunications service provider, a 10-year free Internet donation 1998 – 2008 for more than 4,000 schools. It has been estimated that
Telefónica’s donation equals more than 1 US million a year. As a consequence of this effort, Telefónica is now installing high bandwidth Internet in a growing market of schools demanding more
communication capabilities. Despite Chile’s weak donation law, the Chilean private sector mostly parents and other school
projects not related to Enlaces have contributed nearly 20 of the present hardware in primary schools K-8, and more than 30 in secondary schools.
Parents should be clearly informed about the costs and benefits of introducing ICT in schools in order to invite them to support this initiative. Many schools in rural and economically deprived areas will need a comprehensive effort to
sustain ICT programs over the long term. After initial installation, several recurrent expenses have to be met to allow for sustained pedagogical use of technology. Hardware supplies -- such as printing ink and paper, telephone
lines for Internet connection, supervision when teachers are not on hand, maintenance and equipment replacement --
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The Chilean system has a subsidy scheme based on vouchers given to the schools according to the amount of students they have. Since parents can choose the schools for their children, it is important for the schools to make a
marketing effort and provide a good educational service.
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are just a few of the items essential in the long run. Parents and school administrators should clearly know about these needs to gain their assistance, either with their time or with small contributions of money.
Universities have played a distinctive role in Enlaces by providing human resources for training teachers and for performing technical support. In some, but unfortunately only a few cases, they have also engaged in research and
related activities such as educational software evaluations and field experiments with learning methods using ICT. The reason: Chilean research policies do not properly stimulate the academia to perform field research in their own
school systems.
Enlaces has established a long-lasting relationship with close to 25 universities all over the country. Six of them are large universities that have a long-term contract 4-6 years with the Ministry of
Education MoE and are in charge of a large geographical area, altogether covering the whole country. These six universities subcontract other institutions to help in each specific region or province
with teacher training and technical support. The local institutions als o assist the regional branches of the MoE with the yearly process of selecting schools that should enter the Enlaces program and with
checking the hardware and software installation during each procurement process. All these universities have proven to be strong allies to Enlaces, with a capacity to attend to the specificity of the
schools inside their own geographical zone of influence i.e. a province or a region. This relationship between the MoE and the universities started in 1990 at the beginning of Enlaces
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. A powerful reason for integrating universities in an ICT education policy is the need to modernize the pre-service
curriculum of teachers in order to integrate ICT as a transversal component at all levels. This was not properly addressed in the Enlaces policy, and it is only now recognized as a major challenge [25]. Starting from basic
technical skills, young teachers should clearly understand the uses of ICT in their subject matter and have the capability to integrate them in schools immediately after graduating. As an investment, improving the pre-service
teacher training curriculum might have the most profound effect over the long term, with each generation of new teachers well equipped to upgrade teaching practices. However, if a strong resistance is perceived from academics
which might be the expected case, an initial step might be to include ICT as a separate compulsory subject. However, in this case there is a risk that it might shift ICT to a technology-driven approach i.e. programming and
hardware configurations, rather than the desired curriculum-driven one. Political leaders: The introduction of ICT in education, as part of a modernization effort in the Chilean school
system has been perceived as a sensible and necessary initiative by the general public and, with few exceptions, has not provoked a negative reaction. However, policy-makers should also consider a permanent communication
strategy focused on legislators, opinion leaders, politicians and high-ranking state officials to keep them informed about what is involved goals, costs, time frame, to keep expectations at realistic levels, and to avoid budget cuts on
vital programs.