Education technology is an exploding business, from online videos to anti-cheating software. But what are the risks of digital businesses operating in schools?

Amendment, 21 September: This article was updated to reflect that LearnCoach’s anti-cheating software has not been authenticated by NZQA and is not approved for use in external assessments

“Schools have been run the same way, more or less, for a hundred years. It’s a perfect example of an old-school model,” says Dave Cameron, seeming not to notice the pun. Cameron, the founder of educational technology start-up LearnCoach, thinks it’s time for this “factory” system to change – and, of course, that his company can be part of that. 

“I was tutoring a few students who wanted extra help after school for 15 minutes,” he says. “I realised what a difference it made, then I did the maths and realised to give each of my hundred-odd students that much time each day would take me more than 24 hours.” Instead, he started making educational videos, explaining concepts simply for students who might have missed class or fallen behind in a subject. When he posted the videos online, his students shared them with classmates in other schools, until a few thousand kids were using his resources. In 2017, five years later, he turned these initial online videos into LearnCoach.

Every start-up needs an origin narrative, and this is Cameron’s. He knows that busy, overworked teachers can benefit from their students supplementing their classes with online learning because he was one of those teachers. He knows that students – especially those in big classrooms – can fall through the gaps, because as a teacher he saw students’ attention slip out of his grasp. And, while he doesn’t tell me this in as many words, he knows that the pandemic is a potentially lucrative opportunity for private businesses like his to become embedded in New Zealand’s public schooling infrastructure.

That LearnCoach wants its technology to be more involved in Aotearoa’s schools beyond private tutoring is evident in their latest release, an anti-cheating software which uses a student’s device camera, microphone, and screen to monitor students taking tests at home.

Covid has caused mass absenteeism and Cameron has spotted an opportunity. “This software means that if a student has been away, isn’t ready for an assessment, they can sit it where and when they need to, and it’s easier for the teacher.”

Lawrence Naicker, a deputy principal at Manurewa High School who has worked with LearnCoach to trial the software, agrees that this tool can make assessments easier for teachers and students. “The AI behind the assessment [on LearnCoach] allows it to be authentic,” he says. The software flags movement and speech that may be suspicious during the assessment so it can be viewed by a teacher, who decides whether it’s a problem or not. 

“Rather than the teacher dictating that you need to be ready to be assessed in period five on Friday, you can access the test when you’re ready, so it gives students a greater level of agency and independence,” Naicker says. 

Educational technology, or edtech, is becoming a massive industry. Globally, the sector is expected to grow to US$133 billion by 2026, and EdTech New Zealand (an alliance of local tech companies) says spending on educational software here is projected to reach NZ$319 million by 2025. Some of the world’s biggest businesses are involved, including Google with its “Google Classroom” software and Microsoft, which has a wide range of educational platforms available to schools and tertiary institutes. 

But the widespread adoption of technology for learning, accelerated and further normalised through Covid lockdowns, has its detractors. One significant concern is equity, the oft-mentioned socio-economic digital divide. Adoption of educational software is straightforward for students who have access to personal devices, but what about those who don’t?

During the lockdowns, Manurewa High School “had to get creative to help students get hold of devices”, Naicker says. Often computers or tablets provided to students would end up being used by other members of the family. Wi-fi access was also an issue. 

But despite these challenges, Cameron claims educational technology can ultimately improve the outcomes for everyone. “LearnCoach can help students go up a whole grade,” he says. In the parlance of NCEA, that means a Not Achieved becomes an Achieved. “[LearnCoach] is a hundred bucks for a year – that’s two dollars a week, vastly cheaper than any [tutoring] alternative.” For his company, the “biggest growth area” is partnering with schools to cover that cost for their students. 

That LearnCoach is marketing its software to schools, not just individual students paying for extra help, raises the issue of private businesses with profit motives being introduced into our publicly-funded education system. “It’s tricky working in the public sector as a private company,” acknowledges Cameron. He sees LearnCoach as “supporting the public sector”, but his funding – the company raised $4.5 million in 2020 – is private, and income is mostly from students (and their parents) who pay. 

Under the previous National government, privatisation in the education sector was criticised by academics, who pointed out that private companies are not neutral actors: they may want students to succeed, and even help them to do so, but they also want to protect their own bottom line. While the Labour-led government changed some rules, there is still edtech money to be made from the hundreds of thousands of students studying in Aotearoa, and the price they pay isn’t always financial.

Student privacy, for example, is one potential cost. A recent report from the Privacy Foundation showed the education ministry has done little regulation of privacy controls in software used in New Zealand schools. Overseas, educational software has been shown to share data gathered about students with third parties, with experts saying that the pandemic forced parents and children to agree to dubious privacy settings in educational software as it was the only way to access learning. 

With LearnCoach’s anti-cheating software, the entire premise of which is to record children, protecting privacy was important, Cameron says. He says the company only keeps records temporarily and securely, and then passes the data on to schools to manage. Students must also consent to the data being gathered when they use the software to take the assessment.  

Despite all this, Cameron is optimistic. He knows edtech can never replace teachers – that would be “demotivating and isolating.” But nor can the former teacher see schools thriving without technology. “I can’t see how it’s possible to hire enough teachers to personalise learning,” he says. “We’re not a replacement – but we are a safety net.”

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