Baroness Barran (Con)

My Lords, this is yet another important group of amendments, which seeks to bring, frankly, some common-sense principles to the use of edtech, children’s data and screens. Amendments 493 and 494, in the name of my noble friend Lord Holmes of Richmond, seek to introduce what would in effect be quality standards for the use of edtech in schools. There are existing standards and guidance for schools in relation to hardware and data, but I was unable to find any specifically in relation to edtech, so it feels as though my noble friend has identified a real gap. Similarly, Amendment 502K, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, would introduce a code of practice on the efficacy of edtech. I suggest that, in all these amendments, we need to be very clear that any standards or principles focus not just on some of the data and related safety issues that we have talked about; we must make sure that they are absolutely based on the latest research in cognitive science and the best understanding of pedagogy, so that they deliver learning. We need them to be safe—that is necessary but not sufficient—and effective. Last year, a thorough report by the Education Select Committee on the impacts of screen time on educational well-being found that the proliferation of edtech platforms made their overall benefit hard to quantify. It pointed out that only 7% of edtech providers had conducted randomised controlled trials on their products. The report noted that there are more than half a million apps claiming to be educational but, as yet, no quality standards for assessing educational content. The report judged as poor the evidence base for assessing which, if any, of these apps are most effective. Amendment 493 includes a requirement for transparency in relation to the use of training data, AI and third-party use of data. It shares the spirit of Amendment 502YI, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, which would introduce a code of practice in relation to the processing of data in connection with the provision of education to children—an area where the introduction of AI could expand how children’s data is shared and used. Understanding how our children’s data is used is extremely important, as we have heard from noble Lords across the Committee, but it is important that we can use it. One of the biggest data sources that could move the needle on, for example, AI marking systems for formative assessment, is held in our national exam scripts. We need to be very intentional about the areas that we focus on.