EDDS

Before asking whether a technology works, schools and policymakers should ask whether it is necessary, proportionate and safe to use in the first place. The Department for Education’s new assessment of the education technology market in England is a welcome attempt to make sense of a market that schools are already navigating: fragmented, fast-moving and difficult to assess. The report does several things well. It maps the market, gathers evidence from suppliers and schools, identifies...

There is a persistent belief in education—and in many sectors—that new technology will finally unlock what older approaches could not. Personalisation. Deeper thinking. Inclusion. Creativity. A more human system. The promise is compelling. If we sketch the current dominant model of education, it reveals something more structural—and more uncomfortable—into which technology is now being integrated: a system shaped by a defined logic, driven by a set of pressures, and oriented towards a clearly...

The excitement around educational technology startups has cooled—but it would be a mistake to assume that what remains is therefore better. Markets do not naturally select for what is educationally meaningful or ethically sound. They select for what survives. And survival, especially in a tightening funding environment, often reflects commercial fitness rather than pedagogical value. The current contraction in EdTech should not be read as a simple “clearing out of the noise.” It is something...