Reflections on techno-solutionism in education: Manifestations and causes

Techno-solutionism refers to the belief that many of society’s ills can and should be solved by technology. This paper explores the ways techno-solutionism manifests itself in the field of education: for the past few decades, each new technology trend has been promised to improve the quality of teaching, boost students’ engagement and performances, save time, and increase access to education. The paper starts with the following observation: despite decades of increasing digitalisation of classrooms and development of e-learning tools, neither performances nor equality of access to quality education have significantly improved. From these observations, the paper examines the reasons that education remains fixated on techno-solutionism, despite its disappointing outcomes. It proposes to look at this tension in light of various philosophical concepts, from Foucault’s homo economicus to Biesta’s learnification, to understand the roots of this persistent belief.