"As an administrator, you have to take the subject of digitization seriously and know where you stand. Digitalization is so much more than just a prerequisite for good education." A clear call from Frank Tigges, director of Nestas scholengroep to fill out the Monitor Digitalization Education 2025. Together with policy officer Remco van der Sluis, he talks about the theme of digitization within the school group and how they apply the monitor.
Nestas scholengroep serves the Dordrecht region and consists of 22 schools teaching a total of about 5,000 students. In 2023, Tigges and Van der Sluis filled MYRA. MYRA is the precursor to the Education Digitalization Monitor, with one important difference: the newly developed monitor has a lot fewer questions. Tigges: "It is valuable to give both perspectives a place. It is not only about the strategic perspective, but also about the perspective of the teacher and the school leader. By completing the monitor together, we know which things are going well and which points need more attention."
MYRA's report was the starting point for Nestas scholengroep to get serious about a number of themes. Tigges says: "For us, the action points were mainly in the areas of skills, behavior and privacy policy. This is largely because we have things like infrastructure, secure access and other technical preconditions well in place. After all, our school group is part of KIEN, an ICT cooperative for schools in the South Holland region."
Van der Sluis adds: "That cooperative ensures that we have a lot of knowledge. Because it's well organized technically and policy-wise, it also gets you into the skills area faster. Based on the MYRA analysis, for example, we have action points to get on the AI train faster. Consider a workshop for teachers. By giving teachers more knowledge about the opportunities, and risks, of a tool like ChatGPT, you see that they also start applying it more. For example, ChatGPT can be very useful for preparing lessons. As long as you are aware of what information you are sharing."
Based on the results of MYRA, Nestas school group also started working on the theme of Science and Technology. This theme has been taken up above school level by hiring subject teachers who teach robotics, for example, at all schools. Van der Sluis: "This approach is still quite new in the educational world, but you can see that it works. Students are enthusiastic and for group teachers it is also a practical way to brush up on their own knowledge."
Clearly, Nestas school group has made great strides to embed digitization themes within the schools. Tigges emphasizes that there are also serious concerns about this issue. "The developments in the field of digitization are moving fast and the costs continue to rise. We have been able to pick up many of our projects with temporary grants. When those expire soon, I don't know how we will continue. We are therefore now puzzling enormously over how to keep all the wonderful things we have set up affordable as well."
Van der Sluis also sees a risk there for secondary education. "Our students will soon be in the bridge class with students from other schools. Because funding is not properly regulated, there is a good chance that other boards will make other choices, leaving engineering education behind. As a result, you're going to see huge knowledge gaps." Both Van der Sluis and Tigges therefore hope that there will be structural funding for technology and digitization education. Tigges: "In funding, the focus is on basic skills. That's not weird, but the technical prerequisites are forgotten. That makes it all very fragile now."
Tigges and Van der Sluis are sure that they have the new Education Digitalization Monitor are going to complete. Tigges: "I hope to see that we have made strides, in terms of skills and in organizing safe and reliable use of digital resources." Van der Sluis: "For us, the blind spots are also very interesting. Completing such a monitor also gets you thinking. What is our opinion on certain topics? You may not have an immediate solution, but you can include it in your annual plan. You can then make the policy more concrete. That way you prevent it from remaining just policy."
Van der Sluis looks hopefully at the benchmark being published. "It's interesting to see where you stand. That way you can also work with other boards or regionally on certain themes. It is also fascinating to know whether the blind spot applies only to you, or whether it is a blind spot for the entire sector. Being able to back yourself up against the standard makes the monitor stronger."
