Ronan Price: Technology to light way for students
Penny-pinching and shortsightedness on the rollout of high-speed broadband and the computers to use it on will cost the country in the long term
IMAGINE if the Government gave all our schoolchildren free copybooks but no pencils. Or supplied every school with new desks but no chairs. Or built hundreds of spanking-new classrooms without any windows.
That would be the cynical reaction to the project announced by Communications Minister Pat Rabbitte yesterday to roll out ultra-high-speed broadband of 100 megabits per second (100Mbps) to every school in the country within two years.
It's a laudable goal for sure -- and one not without great challenges -- but it ignores the second part of the equation. What good are lightning-quick internet speeds without the computers in schools to make use of them?
The typical school in this country might have one PC in each classroom and perhaps a couple of dozen in a computer lab, the latter visited once or twice a week by the students. But it's a long way from the 1:1 ratio our schoolchildren will need much sooner rather than later. And the Government has no plan to do something about that.
We should be grateful the Coalition is doing something, even if the investment of just €10m to build a network to reach all parts of the country seems small. The dogs in the street -- as well as the international markets -- know Ireland's long-term economy rests on turning out highly educated, technology-literate graduates. Broadband is as indispensable to modern schools as chalk was to previous generations.
Most schools in the country -- primary and secondary -- have some kind of access to the internet thanks to services offered via Department of Education funding. But many schools suffer painfully slow service unable to cope with several children online at once, never mind the hundreds of pupils that will need it simultaneously in the future.
The FF/Green Party 2009 programme for government promised the delivery of 100Mbps broadband to all secondary schools by 2012. That target obviously fell by the wayside even as other world economies such as Britain invested in their networks. But a pilot scheme introduced by Mr Rabbitte's predecessor Eamon Ryan in 2010 has become the basis for the new project. By the end of 2014, it is hoped every secondary school will be connected to the internet by the equivalent of a motorway and not a boreen.
The lack of urgency, though, will worry many parents who will calculate every second wasted as a step closer to the dole queue or emigration ticket for their sons and daughters.
Certainly, when Mr Rabbitte unveiled his new plan yesterday at one Dublin school that had been wired up in the 100Mbps pilot project, he was keen to point out how computers already shape our children's lives: "Use of information communication technology (ICT) is no longer a separate subject. We must encourage students and teachers to integrate the use of ICT with the traditional teaching methods for all subjects. In this way we will prepare the digital workforce of the future."
Mr Rabbitte chose a school with plenty of computers -- though not one on every desk -- for his photo opportunity. Teachers were happy to demonstrate pupils pulling statistical graphics from the internet for their maths classes, writing essays in Google Docs, an online word processor, or learning music with the help of online software. But this is not an everyday scenario repeated in schools across the country, with or without broadband.
The reality for many schools is that they must scrimp and scavenge old PCs donated or recycled. They must go cap in hand to overstretched parents for a handout. Or rely on the generosity of a handful of multinationals who provide thousands of euro worth of equipment in return for a bit of publicity in the local paper.
There is no coherent state strategy that funds schools to buy new computers. No specific grants, nothing. This hardly stands up as a sustainable model to develop our education system for the knowledge economy.
Obviously, budgetary constraints play a huge role here. When every sector of society is reeling from the effects of deep cutbacks, the Government would surely be wary of splashing out hundreds of millions for shiny new iPads or laptops while some schools struggle to pay even their water bill.
The Department of Education will also be mindful that technology moves so fast that obsolescence is inevitable -- what you buy this year is out of date 12 months later. But parents will be already familiar with that effect, being forced to buy textbooks changed subtly every September.
The bottom line is that penny-pinching shortsightedness will cost in the long term. The Government must provide our schools with enough computers for every secondary-school pupil to equip themselves for the central role technology will play in learning and in life.
In the meantime, let's hope the Government can stick to its schedule of broadband for all post-primary schools by 2014. Connecting schools at 100Mbps in far-flung rural villages won't be a trivial task, with many homes and businesses reliant in these areas on poky speeds of 2Mbps -- if they're lucky -- via the National Broadband Scheme.
"The big challenge is the last mile (of the connection) to schools," said Ronan Lupton, chairman of ALTO, a lobby group for broadband providers. Mr Lupton warned that delivering the promised high speeds was possible but could be tricky.
Irish Independent
