Education Deserves Better Than Technological Fads

By Roxan Roumégas, Partner and President at Mentivis

A few weeks ago, I received a disillusioned call from the director of an engineering school. His institution had just invested several hundred thousand euros in a "revolutionary" learning platform promising "AI-driven individualization." The result: lost students, angry teachers, and a system less effective than before. "How could I have let myself be fooled?" he asked me.

This story, I hear it all too often. In education as elsewhere, we live under the grip of technological solutionism: every pedagogical problem would have its startup, every learning difficulty its miracle algorithm. This frantic race for innovation makes us forget the essential: education is built over time, with method and humility.

The Illusion of Educational Disruption

For fifteen years that I have been supporting educational institutions and training organizations, I have seen fads come and go: MOOCs were going to "democratize education," virtual reality was going to "revolutionize learning," artificial intelligence was going to "personalize teaching." Each technological wave carries its share of grandiose promises and bitter disappointments.

Let us not be mistaken: these tools can be useful. But they do not exempt us from pedagogical reflection, team training, or a clear strategy. Worse, when misused, they become counterproductive. How many institutions have I seen exhaust themselves chasing after every novelty, multiplying "innovative projects" without coherence, to the detriment of their primary mission?

The Invisible Builders

At the opposite end of this agitation, there is another path. That of institutions that build methodically, year after year. That invest first in their teams before their tools. That measure the impact of each change before undertaking others.

These "builders" do not make the front page of specialized magazines. They do not collect innovation prizes. Yet they are the ones who truly transform training pathways, who create lasting value for their students and their territories. A vocational high school that patiently develops its links with local industry, a school that gradually rethinks its pedagogy by involving all its teachers: that is true educational innovation.

Recovering a Sense of Responsibility

Education is not a market like any other. It shapes the citizens of tomorrow, transmits knowledge and values, builds the skills our society needs. This responsibility imposes a particular ethic: that of the long term against immediacy, of proof against promise, of effectiveness against announcement effects.

Educational institutions are not technological experimentation laboratories. They welcome real people, with their hopes and their fragilities. They deserve better than the latest digital gadgets; they deserve tools designed for them, with them, in service of their pedagogical objectives.

Rehabilitating Field Expertise

It is time to rehabilitate those who truly know the educational field: teachers, trainers, pedagogical managers. They alone can distinguish useful innovation from technological marketing. They alone can adapt tools to the real needs of learners.

This expertise is not acquired in six months of consulting. It is forged over time, through daily contact with pedagogical difficulties and successes. It deserves to be listened to, respected, valued — rather than bypassed by supposedly "disruptive" solutions.

Our education system needs stability to reform itself, method to improve, time to transform. Let us give it that chance. Let us give back their place to those who, far from the spotlight, build day after day a solid and lasting education.