This chapter takes stock of the evolution of the current primary education model and the potential afforded by current technology and its effects on children. It reports the results of experiments with self-organising systems in primary education and introduces the concept of a Self-Organised Learning Environment (SOLEs). It then describes how SOLEs operate and discusses the implications of the physics of complex systems and their possible connection with self-organised learning amongst children. The implications for certification and qualifications in an internetimmersive world are also discussed.

Free primary education (FPE) is widely assumed to be required to ensure that the poor gain enrolment. After the introduction of FPE (from January 2003) in Kenyan schools, huge increases in enrolment were officially reported. However, our research, conducted 10 months after the introduction of FPE in and around the informal settlement of Kibera, Nairobi, suggests a less beneficial outcome. Although enrolment had increased in government primary schools, this needs to be balanced against a much larger reported decrease in enrolment in private schools in the informal settlement—the research found 76 private schools, enrolling 12,132 students, which are not on the official list of schools. Moreover, focus groups with parents reported dissatisfaction with government schools, and satisfaction with private schools, since FPE. The findings point to an alternative route to ensuring `education for all', by embracing, rather than ignoring, the role currently played by the private sector.

In the United States, literacy rates vary between socioeconomic groups, and this reading gap is also a common feature in the education systems of OECD member states. To help address this reading gap previous research has identified a number of teaching strategies that have a positive impact on student learning outcomes, including the use of peer collaboration and complex texts. However, the contribution of Computer Supported Collaborative Learning to help address the reading gap for students attending low performing urban elementary schools has, to date, received much less attention and little is known about the ability of young students with access to the Internet to read complex texts in groups and how this impacts on individual reading comprehension scores. This study therefore examines the impact of combining the use of complex texts, collaborative learning and access to the internet on the reading comprehension scores of 58 fourth-grade students (ages 10-11). The students met once a week for an hour over six consecutive weeks and read under the following three conditions: eighth grade level texts independently, eighth grade level texts in groups with internet access and fourth grade level texts in groups with internet access. Our findings demonstrate that groups of young students with access to the internet are capable of reading complex texts with minimal teacher intervention. We also believe that this approach has the potential to help students develop both their offline and online reading comprehension skills.

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