Kids Who Watch on Tablets, Kids Who Create on PCs — What Overseas Education Policy Tells Us

When a child comes home from school and says, "We used tablets in class today," you might find yourself wondering, "Is this really alright?" — and then thinking, "No, this is probably just how things will be from now on." Some parents may feel their thoughts going back and forth like this.

That hesitation is not only a parent's. At the national level too, the world has entered a phase where it can no longer simply declare that "more digital is better."

The country that made digital part of the learning itself

One is Estonia. A small nation of about 1.3 million people, it has — through an initiative called ProgeTiger, launched in 2012 — brought programming, robotics, 3D graphics, and computer science into learning at schools and even kindergartens. Rather than every child taking programming as the same weekly subject, schools have chosen for themselves how to broaden children's opportunities to engage with technology.

In the OECD's PISA 2022 assessment, Estonia ranked among the top in Europe: first in Europe for scientific literacy, and in the highest group for mathematics and reading as well. Still, it would be careless to conclude simply that "their scores are high because they went digital." PISA results are shaped by many factors — the quality of teachers, home environments, school systems, immigration policy, and more.

Even so, there is something to learn from Estonia. What stands out is that it did not merely hand out devices. While building teacher training, learning materials, and information systems connecting school and home, it embedded digital tools into lessons as instruments for "researching, creating, and thinking." It leaned toward learning in which children move their own hands, rather than passively watching a screen.

The country that shifted its weight back to paper and reading

The other is Sweden. This country, too, long advanced the digitalization of its schools. In 2017 a national digitalization strategy for the school system was decided, and the 2018 curriculum revision emphasized digital competence and programming. In recent years, however, the government has raised the banner of "more reading time, less screen time," shifting policy back toward printed textbooks, reading, and handwritten learning.

What must not be misunderstood here is that this is not a conclusion that "digital was bad." The Swedish government is not rejecting digital materials altogether. What it problematizes is use that does not match a child's age or developmental stage, distraction from smartphones during class, and a shortage of time spent reading and writing. It is re-examining not the screen itself, but whether replacing things with screens has weakened children's concentration and deep reading.

Opposite on the surface, the same question underneath

Estonia and Sweden look like opposite movements. One brings in programming and robotics early; the other shifts its weight back to paper books and reading. Yet look closely at both, and the question they arrive at is the same.

It is the question of what the child is actually doing with the tool.

Just watching videos on a screen? Just clicking through the digital materials a teacher handed out? Or researching, creating, trying, failing, and thinking again on their own? The value of digital is decided not by the device itself, but by the activity taking place through it.

Here, the difference between a tablet and a PC also comes into view. A tablet is easy to carry and convenient for watching the screen and operating it intuitively. For the work of "creating," however — writing text, organizing files, building programs, editing images and video — a PC, with its keyboard and larger screen, shows its strength.

At Digital Kodomo BASE, we want to hand children the PC not as a tool for watching, but as a tool for creating. Not the number of devices, but what children do beyond them — that is what these two countries quietly teach us.