A Failure of Delivery: the United Kingdom's New Opportunities Fund programme of teacher training in information and communications technology

Abstract

Abstract The United Kingdom Government's New Opportunities Fund (NOF) programme of information and communications technology (ICT) training was intended to raise standards of pupils' achievements by increasing the expertise of serving teachers in the use of new technology. Costing £230 million, the programme has been described as the most complex initiative for teachers' continuing professional development (CPD) ever undertaken in the United Kingdom. However, the official evaluations of NOF express disappointment about its low impact on classroom practice. This article reviews the evaluations and relates them to recent theories of CPD. It concludes that the failure of NOF, which was due to multiple factors including lack of readiness of the technological resource requirements, failure to motivate teachers, inattention to the context in which teachers work and an underestimation of what is involved in developing appropriate knowledge and skills, was largely predictable. It is suggested that the NOF experie...