Chapter 6

Lessons to Be Learnt?
Education, Techno-
solutionism, and Sustainable
Development
Neil Selwyn

CONTENTS
6.1 Introduction 71
6.2 A Brief History of the Digital (Non)transformation of Education 72
6.3 Current Framings of Ed-Tech and Sustainability Into the 2020s 74
6.4 Education and Sustainability as a Focus of Ongoing Techno-solutionism 76
6.5 Problematizing Ongoing Techno-solutionism Around Education and
Sustainability 77
6.6 Thinking Otherwise – Toward Re-imagining More Sustainable Future Forms
of Digital Education 79
6.7 References 81

6.1 INTRODUCTION
At first glance, education might seem an obvious area where digital technology can be a
major enabler of sustainable development. Indeed, many people presume any aspect of
education to inherently support sustainable development – as Kioupi and Voulvoulis (2019,
p. 13) reason, “the road to sustainability is paved by education, and unless we invest on it,
we might never get there”. This chapter therefore addresses the widely held belief that digi-
tal technologies are an integral part of establishing high-quality educational conditions for
all. With digital technologies now entwined with the generation and sharing of knowledge
throughout contemporary society, growing numbers of policymakers, industrialists, and
education professionals continue to promote the imminent “digital transformation of edu-
cation” (OECD, 2021, p. 5) as a key element of sustainable development in the 2020s and
beyond. This is especially evident through the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) –

DOI: 10.1201/9781003325086-6 71
72   ◾    Technology and Sustainable Development

as UNESCO’s framing Incheon Declaration put it: “information and communication tech-
nologies must be harnessed to strengthen education systems, knowledge dissemination,
information access, quality and effective learning, and more effective service provision”
(UNESCO, 2015, p. iv).
In contrast, this chapter argues that we need to radically reconsider the relationship
between education, sustainable development, and emerging digital technologies. Belying
the prevailing hype, there is little justification to expect the digitally driven reversal of
long-standing inequalities in education. Indeed, the continued reform of education around
excessive digital technology consumption might well exacerbate social inequalities, politi-
cal divisions, and environmental degradation. In short, this chapter argues that discus-
sions around sustainable development need to move away from default assumptions that
the continued digitization of education is an inherently “good thing”. This is not to say that
digital technologies have no place at all in desirable future forms of education – rather this
is a call to re-imagine education technology in scaled-back and slowed-down forms that
might be deemed appropriate for an era of continuing social upheaval and climate collapse.

6.2 A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE DIGITAL (NON)

TRANSFORMATION OF EDUCATION
Notwithstanding the ongoing hype around digital education, the past 40 years provide scant
evidence that the implementation of digital technologies straight-forwardly “enhances” or
“transforms” education systems in widespread and/or lasting ways (see Selwyn, 2021a). Of
course, education systems in the Global North have invested heavily during this period in
the adoption of computers, the internet, platforms, and most recently a range of Artificial
Intelligence systems and tools. Yet, while these waves of “innovation” have all prompted
notable surface-level changes to the nature and form of what takes place in classrooms
and other education settings, any sense of progress is tempered with a general acknowl-
edgment that long-standing structural inequalities and inefficiencies of education persist
(Rafalow & Puckett, 2022). In this sense, it could be argued that we now have education
systems that might well appear to be increasingly technologically dependent, but are still
not technologically empowered.
Any discussions of education technology and sustainable development therefore need to
pay close attention to the long-standing complexities and intricacies of digital technology
and educational change. Take, on one hand, the ways in which current digitally driven forms
of school and university education in high-income countries continue to be structured by
entrenched educational logics. For example, it seems that digital technology has done little
to disrupt resilient hierarchies of time, space and place, as well as curricularized assumptions
of knowledge, the primacy of individual assessment, and other established institutional
forms of schooling. On the other hand, the dominant forms of digitization that have taken
hold in education seem primarily to reinforce and amplify “corporate reforms” of schools
and universities – supporting the creeping standardization of practice, a reliance on
metrics and data-driven accountability, and increased emphasis on market-led efficiencies.
In all these ways, then, the impacts of digital “innovations” and “disruptions” in most
 Education, Techno-solutionism and Sustainable Development    ◾    73

Global North education systems remain firmly in lockstep with vested institutional inter-
ests and the maintenance of administrative power.
At the same time is a long-standing – but largely unrealized – faith in the capacity of edu-
cation technology initiatives to redress social, economic, and cultural disparities in low-
income and middle-income regions. In policy terms, the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable
Development is framed around the notion that “the spread of information and com-
munications technology and global interconnectedness has great potential to accelerate
human progress” (UN, 2015, para 10). In practical terms, the past 20 years or so of work
in the field of “information and communications technologies for development” (ICT4D)
is littered with high-profile instances of such tech-driven hubris. Toward the end of the
1990s, for example, the much-celebrated “Hole In The Wall” initiative saw the placement
of unattended computer kiosks in some of the poorest communities around India –
ultimately rewarded by a $1 million TED prize to further develop the idea of technology-
driven “self-organized learning”. As was subsequently claimed by the initiative’s founder
(then chief scientist at the global “IT learning solutions” corporation NIIT): “what children
achieve routinely in hundreds of ‘Holes-in-the-Walls’ in some of the remotest places on
earth is nothing short of miraculous – a celebration of learning and the power of self-
motivation” (Mitra & Dangwal, 2010, p. 680). In contrast, the impact of these interven-
tions was acknowledged widely by disinterested observers to have fallen well short of any
such claims. As Mark Warschauer (2003, p. 45) reflected: “in short, communit[ies] came to
realize that minimally invasive education was, in practice, minimally effective education”.
Another salient illustration of these unfulfilled ambitions was MIT’s much-celebrated
“One Laptop Per Child” initiative, which worked throughout the 2000s to saturate educa-
tionally impoverished communities across sub-Saharan Africa and South America with
rugged “$100 laptop” devices deemed capable of supporting self-directed learning. In con-
trast to its grand ambitions of “empowering the world’s poorest children”, OLPC ceased
operations after a few years and was soon judged to have comprehensively failed (Keating,
2009), with independent observers noting “how little the project’s vision [was] taken up in
practice” (Ames, 2016, p. 95).
Other high-profile digitally driven social renewals of education have similarly failed
to materialize. During the 2010s, for example, the emergence of Massive Open Online
Courses (MOOCs) prompted much enthusiasm – touted as a means of providing free
university-grade tuition for masses of online learners around the world regardless of their
local circumstances or prior educational experience. Yet, belying promises of radically
democratized tuition, most MOOCs proved to merely advantage those who were already
well-resourced and educationally successful (Rohs  & Ganz, 2015). As Tressie McMillan
Cottom (2012, n.p) reasoned at the time:

The people who would benefit most from online learning are not necessarily
where these programs are moving. That means really ambitious autodidacts – the
kind who have long benefited most from innovative education models – will take
advantage of MOOCs to become, well, more autodidact-ish. Already privileged
74   ◾    Technology and Sustainable Development

elite students with broadband, iPads, Macbooks, and time (the greatest luxury of
all) will simply have more spaces in which to be privileged and elite.

Such high-profile failures illustrate the stubborn trend across the past 40 years for even
the most well-resourced and innovatively designed digital education “solutions” to floun-
der in terms of lack of fit with local contexts and needs, a lack of interest in the long-
term sustainability of such ventures, and what Kemp Edmunds (cited in Madda, 2022, n.p)
describes as “an unadulterated hubris that [technology actors] can solve complicated lay-
ered problems in extremely complex industries with many challenging stakeholders, [and]
financial, bureaucratic and time constraints”. Above all, these unrealized attempts at tech-
nological transformation warn against the folly of assuming that structural, societal, and
deep-rooted issues surrounding education are easily “fixable” via technology. As Megan
Erickson (2015, n.p.) puts it, “education is not a design problem with a technical solution”.

6.3 CURRENT FRAMINGS OF ED-TECH AND

SUSTAINABILITY INTO THE 2020S
Set against this background – and drawing on the key concepts underpinning this book
(see Chapter  2) – why should we presume that further applications of digital education
during the 2020s under the banner of “sustainable development” will be any different? In
practical terms, one of the major reasons why people continue to anticipate the digitally
driven improvement of education is the UN “Sustainable Development Goals” (SDGs) – in
particular, SDG 4: “Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong
learning opportunities for all”. Digital technology is clearly aligned with at least six of
the ten targets in SDG 4, which confidently foreground digital technology as a key area of
skill development, as well as a means of equitable delivery, and system-wide planning and
monitoring. As such, tech firm Huawei (2018) reckoned SDG 4 to have some of the high-
est levels of correspondence with digital technology across all 17 SDG goals, concluding
that “even slight technological improvements could result in better performance” in terms
of progress toward SDG 4 criteria. All told, SDG 4 continues to boost the idea of digital
technology as a potentially powerful enabler of sustainable education during the 2020s. As
Tyagi et al. (2019, p. 441) contend in a report titled “ICT Goals for SDG 4”:

rolling out ICT solutions will not only transform education and deliver social and
economic benefits to people but also provide substantial benefits for the education
sector globally.

In more specific terms, the ten SDG 4 targets and associated indicators boldly frame digital
technology use in education as potentially supporting economic, social, and environmen-
tal sustainability. These include various expected economic benefits in terms of increasing
economic growth and workforce capacity. For example, bolstering the long-standing jus-
tifications around supporting young people to develop work-related computer skills is the
continued promotion of specific forms of “digital literacy”, “learning to code”, and simi-
lar forms of technology-centered “up-skilling” within most levels of education (see also
 Education, Techno-solutionism and Sustainable Development    ◾    75

Chapter 8). More recently, schools have been positioned as key sites in the development
of “on-demand” technological competencies required by young people entering the “gig
economy” and other forms of precarious labor. We have also seen digital education initia-
tives in middle-income and low-income regions seeking to develop “digital entrepreneur-
ism” among young people – that is, programs designed to encourage technology-driven
entrepreneurial skills, “digital livelihoods” and provide digital skills development oppor-
tunities with a focus on using digital technologies to start businesses, secure employment,
and access financial products and services (UNESCO, 2018).
Alongside these presumed economic benefits are strong claims over social sustainability
outcomes. In particular is the idea of digital technologies enhancing the accessibility (and
therefore inclusivity) of education provision. This is seen to be the case, for example, for
learners with neurodevelopmental conditions, and other mental and physical disabilities
(see Chapter 7). As Megan Crawford (2017) reasons in terms of the SDG 4 goals:

With connectivity, students can access learning resources and opportunities even
in remote or low-income areas. Teachers can prepare for classes anytime or any-
where. ICT opens up access to education to underserved populations for whom
improved educational opportunities lead to improved economic opportunities.

Specific social benefits include diversifying pathways into computer science and “STEM”
careers for groups traditionally underrepresented in these employment sectors, as well
as establishing schools, libraries, and other educational institutions as centers for shared
community access to computers, internet, and other digital resources. All told, enthusiasm
abounds for the capacity of most new forms of digital technology to enhance equality of
educational opportunities and educational outcomes. As Ward (2020, n.p.) puts it, “rich
nations can contribute immensely to SDG 4 by using the next generation of educational
technology to democratize access to advanced learning on a global scale”.
Finally are burgeoning claims that the continued digitization of education can contribute
to environmental sustainability. For example, it is suggested that digital technologies are
a ready means of developing environmental education, and fostering global communities
of students centered around climate change awareness and action (Gismondi  & Osteen,
2017). Alongside these benefits is the alignment of digital education with “green tech” prin-
ciples – where increased use of digital technologies in education contributes to the pursuit
of forms of eco-growth. In particular is the presumption that online education can support
the reduction of carbon emissions associated with campus-based travel and education – not
least by lowering emissions of students and teachers otherwise commuting to-and-from
classes (Versteijlen et al., 2017) alongside the reduction of on-campus power consumption
(Caird et al., 2015). If education technology is considered at all in terms of its environmental
impact, this has tended to be in wholly positive claims of “protect[ing] global environmental
resources” (Caird & Roy, 2019, p. 107). As Becker and Otto (2019, p. 8) conclude:

Digital learning . . . saves resources and CO2 emissions, thus contributing to the pro-
tection of the climate and to the goal of responsible consumption and production. . . .
76   ◾    Technology and Sustainable Development

it helps to connect people from different cultures by allowing for intercultural

exchange among students without additional travelling . . . it facilitates a self-regulated
learner-centered style of learning that is well-suited to empower learners to become
agents of a sustainable development.

6.4 EDUCATION AND SUSTAINABILITY AS A FOCUS

OF ONGOING TECHNO-SOLUTIONISM
All told, the received wisdom is that the continued digitization of education across the
2020s remains will play a pivotal role in advancing communities, countries, and regions
toward a range of sustainability outcomes. Indeed, in reviewing the likely impact of digi-
tal technology across the 17 SDGs, Neves (2020, p.  266) takes time to highlight a par-
ticularly “strong linkage between education and digital solutions”. Looking beyond such
speculative expectations, however, the push for continued digitized education during the
2020s is clearly extending (if not amplifying) the spirit of techno-solutionism that under-
pinned previous decades of education technology. Indeed, if anything, expectations of an
educational “technical fix” appear to be further exaggerated with each successive wave of
emerging technology. Take, for example, recent expert assertions that all ten SDG 4 indi-
cators can be positively influenced by emerging innovations around mobile internet, Big
Data, and cloud computing (Gupta et al., 2020). Similarly, so-called 4IR (Fourth Industrial
Revolution) technologies such as AI, biotech, mixed reality, quantum computing, and
robotics are now inspiring heightened rhetoric such as “wealthy nations developing trans-
formational 4IR Ed-Tech have a moral imperative to use it to achieve SDG 4” (Ward, 2020,
n.p.). At this point, the only concerns being raised seem to relate to the speed and scale of
the technology rollout. For example, when considering the potential of e-books and digital
libraries, Evans (2016) reflects,

Whilst they have their merits and arguably are having a deep and transformative
impact on particular communities, the reality is that these solutions cannot scale
quickly enough to reach the 250 million children who are not learning basic lit-
eracy. Time is not on our side if we are to achieve the SDGs by 2030.

Of course, as acknowledged throughout this book, such hype and hubris are not unique
to education. Indeed, technological solutionism is integral to mainstream thinking
around most aspects of sustainability and pervades discussions around most of the SDGs
(see Chapter  2). Indeed, current discussions around sustainable development have been
described as imbued with an “ambient promeatheanism” which foregrounds the problem-
solving capabilities of human innovation, and “advances technological solutions developed
by capital and energy-intensive projects” (Dillet & Hatzisavvidou, 2022, p. 1). Nevertheless,
the persistence of this solutionist mentality within sustainability discussions appears par-
ticularly pronounced in terms of education and SDG 4. In many ways, the appeal of this
enduring magical thinking around technology and education is understandable. Morgan
Ames’s (2019) notion of “charismatic technology” describes the ways in which new tech-
nologies gain traction within education discussions through the promised association of
 Education, Techno-solutionism and Sustainable Development    ◾    77

impressive technical progress with equally far-reaching social progress. Seen in this light,
techno-solutionism offers a high-profile and expedient means for governments, education
authorities, and other stakeholders to appear responsive to complex sustainable develop-
ment imperatives in a forthright and innovative manner. There are obvious self-interested
reasons for actors concerned with matters of sustainable development and education to
be acting in this manner. The main question that remains far less obvious, however, is
whether they are justified in doing so.

6.5 PROBLEMATIZING ONGOING TECHNO-SOLUTIONISM

AROUND EDUCATION AND SUSTAINABILITY
At this point, then, we need to consider the prospect of education technology simply con-
tinuing over the next few decades as a case of “business-as-usual”, perhaps overlaid with
a veneer of green growth. The ongoing efforts around SDG 4 certainly seem to presume
the continued mass implementation of digital technologies in the service of sustainable
development outcomes. If so, we need to also take seriously the likely adverse outcomes
and limits of continuing to pursue this line of solutionist thinking in contrast to the likely
lack of impactful change. As Katy Jordan (2020) notes, the presumed beneficial impacts of
digital technology on SDG 4 remain woefully under-scrutinized, with academic research-
ers showing little appetite for investigating actual links between digital technologies and
SDG 4. Yet, in light of previous iterations of digital (non)transformation of education, it is
doubtful that the promise of future digital education solutions under the aegis of SDG 4
will ever be fully realized. As such, it is important to acknowledge that few of these inven-
tions and initiatives are likely to address the complex societal and planetary factors under-
pinning sustainability problems in the ways that are being currently promised.
A few interrelated issues therefore need to be brought to bear on the current optimism
that persists throughout mainstream discussions around digital technologies and SDG 4.
First, it is worth stressing that this is not an argument that digital technologies are of no
benefit at all. As with previous waves of education technology initiatives and interventions
during the 2000s and 2010s, it is likely there will be plenty of specific localized instances
of digital technology innovation that might be seen as cases of “best practice” in terms
of supporting particular social, economic, and/or environmental sustainability. Digital
technologies are likely to continue to “work” for some people – for example, advantag-
ing already privileged students and teachers, and/or resulting in outcomes that “work” in
support of institutional agendas. Yet, it is important to consider the scale and scope of any
ostensibly positive applications of technology – especially in terms of the inevitably limited
capacity to address inequalities and disparities between historically marginalized and dis-
advantaged groups and regions. As Sætra (2022) points out, we should not let micro-level
impacts on individuals and small groups distract attention from (i) the differential impact
of any digital technology use at a meso-level of classes, nations, and regions, as well as (ii)
the long-term macro-level impacts of digital technologies “on our economies and societies
in the broadest sense”.
In addition, it is also important to consider the interlinked nature of any sustainable
development outcomes – with any application of digital technology in education likely to
78   ◾    Technology and Sustainable Development

have corresponding (and often conflicting) social, economic, political, and environmental
impacts. Indeed, one of the limitations of the current techno-solutionist framings of digital
education is how they over-simplify sustainability issues in ways that fit the technological
solutions being proposed – therefore doing little more than give a surface appearance of
addressing the problems that they purport to address (Nachtwey & Seidl, 2020). Moreover,
as reasoned in Chapter 2, dominant narratives of technological change tend to frame per-
ceptions of what is possible solely in terms of the technology to hand. This chimes with
Christo Sims’ (2017) account of how technology actors often frame (and underestimate)
education “problems” through a technical mindset, resulting in what Sims describes as a
“tunnel vision” where attention is paid only to aspects of education that fit with the tools
that are being developed.
The implications of this “tunnel vision” in terms of the capacity of current forms of digi-
tal technology to meaningfully address sustainability goals need to be taken seriously. For
example, Sims (2017) argues that this narrowness of perspective tends to marginalize con-
cerns for wider social contexts that shape educational institutions and the communities
that they serve, while often glossing over issues of wider structural inequalities altogether.
This “tunnel vision” therefore leads to tautological conclusions where the implementation
of a new digital technology is offered as a plausible response to problems that have been set
in train by the use of a preceding digital technology. In addition is a worrying tendency
for digital technology to fundamentally alter how issues of sustainability in education are
perceived – not least, the “economisation and depoliticization of planetary environmental
issues” (Dillet & Hatzisavvidou, 2022, n.p.; see also Chapter 17).
In this sense, it is well worth reconsidering the likely adverse outcomes of continuing
to pursue reductionist forms of solutionist thinking in relation to sustainable development
and SDG 4. In particular, this raises the need to consider the possibility that digital edu-
cation developments are unlikely to address the complex social nature of sustainability
problems in the ways that are promised. Instead, if anything, it might be expected that the
current wave of techno-solutionism is most likely to perpetuate (and perhaps intensify)
sustainability harms. Take, for instance, the ways in which virtual schooling was imple-
mented across the COVID-19 pandemic shutdowns of school and university systems –
demonstrating consistently how technology-based education remains predicated on elite
consumption and uneven benefits (Sosa Díaz, 2021). As Susan Flynn (2021), writing from
the perspective of an educator in a high-income country, reflects on the “online pivot” dur-
ing the COVID-19 pandemic:

The digital realm proffers ease of access, connectivity, easy dissemination of

knowledge and information but it also produces and sustains inequalities and per-
petrates assumptions. Our students may not be the digital natives we assume, nor
is their access to technology necessarily equitable.

Alongside these disparities in educational outcomes are the ways in which digitally focused
forms of skills education have also proven to exacerbate social inequalities in employment
outcomes – at best facilitating access to low-status, low-paid, routine and precarious jobs
 Education, Techno-solutionism and Sustainable Development    ◾    79

within the new economy, or trapping young people into a subsistence self-employment
along decidedly vulnerable and marginalized forms of digitally driven “entrepreneurial-
ism”. As Angela Dy (2019, pp. 11–12) contends:

Despite the transformative potential of the Internet, the landscape of digital entre-
preneurship is still shaped by social patterns of privilege and disadvantage . . . the
current trend of encouraging digital entrepreneurship as a means to social mobil-
ity and economic independence for marginalized and disadvantaged people may
in fact be encouraging greater economic vulnerability.

Perhaps most noteworthy (yet glossed over in most discussions of education and technol-
ogy) are the ways in which a continued emphasis on digital education is likely to exacerbate
growing ecological and environmental harms associated with the production, consump-
tion, and disposal of digital technology. For example, picking up on Brevini’s arguments in
Chapter 3, any enthusiasms for the increased use of AI in education surely have to reckon
with the materiality of this technology and its deleterious consequences for the planet.
Striving to refashion education around AI, augmented reality, and other emerging digital
technologies feeds directly into the problems that Brevini highlights regarding the depletion
of scarce resources in manufacturing, usage and disposal processes, alongside the excessive
amounts of energy used to support data processing and storage, and the exacerbation of
waste and pollution issues. The continued excessive application of digital technology in any
context – education included – makes little sense in terms of environmental sustainability.
All told, we need to take seriously the prospect that digital education is unlikely to be a
key enabler of sustainable development and might well result in regressive and ultimately
harmful outcomes for many people and regions. This corresponds with broader emerg-
ing concerns among environmental activists – what Jonathan Crary sees as the “obvious
but unsayable reality” that digital technology is not likely to be an instrumental of radical
change – instead, that “if there is to be a livable and shared future on our planet, it will be
a future offline” (Crary, 2022, p. 1). Set against this bleak perspective, therefore, it seems
increasingly important that we need to think otherwise when it comes to the forms of “digi-
tal education” that should be encouraged under the aegis of sustainable development.

6.6 THINKING OTHERWISE – TOWARD RE-IMAGINING MORE

SUSTAINABLE FUTURE FORMS OF DIGITAL EDUCATION
In this spirit of thinking otherwise, we now need to reflect on the challenge of looking
forward to what could (or should) be done differently when it comes to digital technol-
ogy, education, and sustainable development. First is the need to reframe popular, profes-
sional, and policy discussions about education and digital technology along more socially,
economically, and environmentally realistic lines. The arguments advanced in this chap-
ter (and across most chapters in this book) follow what can be broadly understood as a
“socio-technical” perspective – that is, considering the application of digital technologies
“in context, and not as some isolated and neutral tool” (Sætra, 2022). As has been evi-
dent throughout all of this chapter’s discussions, the application of digital technology in
80   ◾    Technology and Sustainable Development

education needs to be seen as a coming together of technical and social issues – of devices,
institutions, economic and political systems, scientific laws, and social relations.
Seen in this light it makes little sense to expect sustainable development outcomes to
arise unproblematically from the application of digital technology in education. Instead,
education technology needs to be reframed as a political issue – that is, guided by values
that some actors wish to see realized, while clashing with the values of others. At pres-
ent, the dominant values informing the implementation of digital education under the
aegis of SDG 4 and “sustainable development” make sense only in terms of what has been
described elsewhere in this book as the “shallow” ecological thinking that typifies the utili-
tarian pragmatism of Western governments, businesses, and industry (see Chapter 18). The
subtext of many of this chapter’s criticisms is that any such “business-as-usual” approach
is likely not good enough. Instead, we need to re-imagine digital education along more
radical lines. In short, we need to find more refined forms of sustainable digital education
that do not perpetuate harms to marginalized people and are not yoked to presumptions
of continued economic growth and/or the excessive harmful waste of planetary resources.
One such radical alternative might be reframing our ambitions for digital technology
and education around an explicit eco-justice agenda (e.g., Ale, 2021). This might start with a
collective “withdrawal” or “releasement” from unsustainable and harmful forms of educa-
tion technology (Heikkurinen, 2018) – that is, not feeling compelled to be led by “gigantic”
developments in corporate software development, but instead feeling confident to follow
other lines of digital use. In this spirit, we might choose to re-imagine education technol-
ogy along more “sustainable” lines, where the allocations of digital resources are appor-
tioned fairly and do not excessively disadvantage the already disadvantaged. In its own
small way, then, these are alternate values and principles that educators, policymakers,
and other stakeholders would do well to take on board as they face up to the challenge of
deciding what “sustainable” technology use in education might look like in times that are
increasingly shaped by climate crisis, social upheaval, and political instability. From this
perspective, rethinking sustainable forms of digital technology use in education requires
us to focus on questions of ethics alongside questions of ecology.
In the immediate term, this reframing of education technology first compels us to
consider current forms of digital technology that might be considered “sustainable” in
nature, and therefore deserving of retention. These technologies and practices might ful-
fill a number of briefs. First is the encouragement of “low-impact” technology use sus-
tained by re-use, repair, and recycling of digital resources within education settings and
local communities (thereby bringing education technology into correspondence with the
efforts around SDG 12 – “responsible consumption and production”). Second is a general
emphasis on basic forms of digital technologies that can be easily produced, maintained,
augmented, and repurposed on a local basis. This relates to the degrowth ethos of “volun-
tary simplicity” (Liegey & Nelson, 2020, p. 12) and the prioritization of technology that is
“slower by design” (Kallis et al., 2020, p. ix). Echoes of these approaches are certainly evi-
dent throughout the recent history of educational computing – especially in terms of the
renewed interest throughout the 2010s for mini-computers such as the Raspberry Pi and
MicroBit, as well as the adoption of “Maker technology” and other forms of “tinkering”.
 Education, Techno-solutionism and Sustainable Development    ◾    81

Much of this alternate spirit of what might be termed “Ed-Tech within limits” (Selwyn,
2021b) is also evident within communities and contexts whose engagements with digital
technologies are already substantially constrained by climate, hostile environments, and
limited resources and infrastructure. In this sense, high-income countries might also learn
from looking toward the forms of technology-based education innovation that have devel-
oped (and sometimes flourished) in low-income countries, regions, and contexts. Indeed,
the history of locally driven education technology development in low-income contexts
over the past 20 years or so can provide strong pointers to the forms of digital technology
infrastructure and use that might be considered “appropriate” for increasingly resource-
constrained and environmentally hostile circumstances elsewhere. These include “low-
tech” technology such as radio, telecentres, SMS, and pre-loaded dumbphones. Indeed,
the worldwide shutdowns of schooling during the successive waves of the COVID-19
pandemic saw local educators in many low-income and middle-income countries turn to
analog technologies (such as radio, television, dumbphones, and paper-based resources)
to redress the inequalities of online schooling (see Meinck et al., 2022). As such, all these
examples point to a number of principles that might be taken forward into re-imagining
education technology for an era of climate crisis.
Regardless of specific form and design, the different ideas just outlined all point to ways
in which we might begin to rethink education technology in terms of distributive justice –
fostering sustainable and socially appropriate forms of technology use for disadvantaged
groups who stand to benefit most from the use of education technology (and, conversely,
lose most from the enforced absence of education technology). This also suggests establish-
ing norms of what constitutes “fair” forms of education technology access and use, as well
as foregrounding principles of collective decision-making and communal ways of manag-
ing how technologies are developed and deployed in education (O’Sullivan et al., 2021).
All told, these examples highlight that reframing forms of education technology that are
appropriate for an age of climate crisis, increasing social instability, and other concerns
that relate to “sustainable development” does not simply equate with making less use of
technology in education. Instead, it requires engaging with the complex problem of how
to make less use of technology for more just education outcomes. These are clear shifts and
changes that will not arise from continuing to approach education and sustainable devel-
opment along techno-solutionist lens.

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