Technology in education: what the evidence says works, and what Spain should do next

Democracia 21's launch speech in Madrid on 10 October 2026 asked Spain to make technology a pillar of education and to look at what other countries do. That is a good instinct, and the evidence from those countries is now solid enough to say which kind of technology helps pupils learn.

What the evidence says

UNESCO's Global Education Monitoring Report of 2023 starts with a warning. Good, impartial evidence on education technology is in short supply, much of it comes from the companies selling it, and products change every 36 months on average, faster than anyone can evaluate them. Only 7% of UK edtech companies had run randomised trials. Teachers often feel unprepared, and only half of countries have standards for teachers' digital skills. The report found that in 14 countries the mere presence of a phone nearby distracted pupils and hurt learning.

When rigorous studies do exist, they point in one direction. J-PAL reviewed 126 of them. Programmes that only hand out computers and internet access generally do not improve grades or test scores, though they do make pupils better at using computers. Computer-assisted learning software that lets each pupil progress at their own rate has shown great promise, particularly in maths. Text-message nudges to families and students had modest but meaningful effects at very low cost. Blended courses did as well as face-to-face ones, and purely online courses did worse.

The Education Endowment Foundation in England translated that kind of evidence into advice for schools. Its guidance report makes four recommendations: start from how technology will improve teaching and learning, and use it to improve explanations, pupils' practice, and assessment and feedback. The foreword is blunt that buying a tablet for every pupil is unlikely to raise attainment, and that the pedagogy behind a tool is what can.

PISA 2022 adds the other side of the ledger. The OECD's report on devices finds that pupils who used devices for learning one to five hours a day generally did better than non-users. Leisure use was the problem: pupils who spent up to an hour a day on devices for leisure at school scored 49 points higher in maths than those who spent five to seven hours, after adjusting for social background. On average across the OECD, 65% of pupils said their own devices distracted them in at least some maths lessons, and pupils distracted by others' devices lost the equivalent of three-quarters of a year of schooling.

Sweden read these signals early. In December 2022 its school minister Lotta Edholm wrote that digitalisation in schools had largely been an experiment, while still crediting digital books with real advantages. In March 2023 the government created a grant of SEK 685 million for textbooks and teacher guides, with just over SEK 500 million a year from 2024; books with digital components qualify too.

Where Spain stands

Spain has made a large investment. According to the education ministry in August 2026, the #DigEdu plan, funded by NextGenerationEU with €1,285 million, delivered 374,747 devices against 300,000 committed, equipped 278,449 classrooms with interactive digital systems against a target of 240,000, and certified the digital competence of 666,318 teachers, 17% more than planned. €821 million went to installing and maintaining the interactive classrooms.

So Spain has the hardware and a trained workforce. The recovery money ends, and the question now is what runs on those screens and whether it helps children learn more. The evidence above suggests the answer lies in software for practice and feedback, chosen carefully, and much less in more equipment.

A radical-centre approach

The left is right that the digital gap between schools is a question of equality. Every public school, in a rich or a poor neighbourhood, needs working equipment, a decent connection and teachers who know how to use them, and that needs public money after the EU funds end, including for maintenance. The market-liberal tradition is right that public money should buy results. Edtech companies selling to schools should show independent evidence that their product raises learning, and schools should be free to drop tools that fail.

The idea that joins them comes from Jennifer Pahlka. In Recoding America she argues that government services fail when they are specified at the top and handed down, and work when small teams test with real users and adjust as they go. Apply that to school technology. The ministry and the regions buy in small lots, run each tool first in a group of volunteer schools with teachers as the users who shape it, measure pupils' progress against similar schools, and expand only what works. A shared catalogue lists each tool with its evidence, so a head in Soria can see what worked in Zaragoza.

Raghuram Rajan adds the purpose. In The Third Pillar he sees technology helping teachers deal with the old problem of teaching to the average: pupils work on material at their own level, and class time goes to help where each one needs it. That is exactly the use the J-PAL and EEF evidence supports. A Spanish school that uses its interactive screens for explanations, adaptive software for maths practice and quick digital quizzes for feedback, and keeps phones away for the rest of the day, is following the evidence.

The rule we would write is simple: fund equipment and maintenance for every school as a public duty, and fund software only when it has passed a trial in Spanish classrooms.