With the ongoing global changes, majority of the resources and educational information is available online to children. Learning has now been digitalised mostly.

Certain groups of children face disadvantages and are unable to acquire the maximum from these educational opportunities that are presented to them. This is due to certain factors such as economic inequalities and barriers due to their geographical locations.

Another cause for this may be the shortage of expertise with the technological skills. In rural areas, the teachers as well as the parents lack knowledge on the usage of these modern devices.

This means that there lack of access to technology is not solely based on economic factors but by social and cultural factors (The Conversation 4 March 2014) as well such as:

The unwillingness of some cultures to divert from the traditional educational system. The strong beliefs that some cultures hold towards the dangers of technology may also be one of the reasons.

Most of the content available online is limited to specific cultures and languages. Thus barriers in languages and cultures discourage students from using technology (The Conversation 4 March 2014).

This refers to how the major incidents that took place throughout history has shaped and contributed to the restrictions in technology to different social structures.

Aftermaths of post-colonisation period. After independence the colonies struggled to build their educational systems due to their resources being misused. Therefore there has been a delay in the development of technology in education for the colonised states.

Racial and cultural segregation- From centuries, the low-income and minor groups have been isolated and disconnected from the society. They are prevented from quality education and any other opportunities such as technology.

One area where majority of the educational systems around the world go wrong, is their failure in helping the children become global citizens.

The curriculum is unable to keep the children upto date with the ongoing problems in the world such as global warming, et cetera. Therefore children lack cognitive intelligence and there is an absence of skills such as critical thinking and problem solving.

Every national system focuses on their own culture and unintentionally ignoring the importance of cultures all over the globe. This makes children unaware and insensitive to the practices of other cultural systems.

When examining this issue through a socio-cultural lens, it is evident that it arises from the power dynamics, the contrasting economic status in the global society.

As discussed earlier, the powerful cultures in the international society often tend to ignore and disregard the less powerful backgrounds. Children therefore become empathy-deficient and insensitive towards the diverse perceptions.

Westernisation- By this process, the countries adopt the cultures, the values and the practices of the Western and the European world. This took place drastically after colonisation. Thus, the educational systems are mostly influenced by the European cultures. This causes limitations on the pool of diverse cultural knowledge for students and therefore they are unable to connect with the global changes.

Not only did this historical event bring a worldwide westernised system but also eradicated the cultures and the history of the minority indigenous groups. Students are therefore deprived of opportunities of learning about the social, historic and economic disparities that have been existing throughout centuries (Shay and Lampert 2020).

Bodrova E and Leong D (2024) Tools of the Mind: A Vygotskian approach to Early Childhood Education, 3rd edn, Routledge, New York, https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/mono/10.4324/9781003164920/tools-mind-elena-bodrova-deborah-leong.

Gadotti M and Torres CA (2009) 'Paulo Freire: Education for Development', Forum 2009, 40(6):1255.

Orr D (1991) 'What is Education for?', In Context, 25. 52 https://www.context.org/iclib/ic27/orr/.

Shay M and Lampert J (2020) 'Community according to whom? An analysis of how indigenous 'community' is defined in Australia's Through growth to achievement 2018 report on equity in education', Critical Studies in Education, 63(1):47.

The Conversation (4 March 2014) 'Why poor kids continue to do poorly in the education game?', The Conversation, accessed 2 March 2025, https://theconversation.com/why-poor-kids-continue-to-do-poorly-in-the-education-game-23500 .