The U.S. was not as well-equipped for the massive COVID shift to online learning, with families paying more for internet service and fewer owning home computers than families on other nations.
The U.S. rank 12th for digital infrastructure in , an online tutoring platform. Among the study’s key findings:
- Only 72% of U.S. students have a home computer, compared to 91.7% in the UK and85.6% in Canada.
- U.S. ranks low for government spending on education per pupil, at 19.4% of GDP per capita.
- The U.S. has 9,303 online learning coursesmore than Canada, New Zealand, Australia, and the UK combined.
The countries with the bestonline learning infrastructurebased on computer access, costs, broadband and mobile internet speeds, internet availability and and other factorsare: Norway, Denmark, Switzerland, Luxmebourg, and the Netherlands.
The U.S. also placed behind: Sweden, Austria, New Zealand, Finland, Australia and Canada.
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“The coronavirus pandemic has demonstrated that access to digital education is unequally distributed, but that there are ample opportunities to begin investing in the digital infrastructure necessary for a national shift to online learning,” , CEO of Preply, said in a news release.
The average cost of internet service in the U.S. is the second-highest among the 30 countries, second only to New Zealand.
The study also noted the U.S. fell in the middle of the pack when it comes to paying tutors. The average hourly salary for a tutor in the U.S. is$18.83, significantly less than the $35-per-hour that tutors in Denmark earn.
91心頭’s offers complete coverage of the impacts on K-12.
