Information for all ages

The total investment by the Government in information and communications technologies (ICT) for schools will reach some £121 million by the end of the year 2002. This huge tranche of money is augmented by significant investment on the part of the corporate sector - with Eircom, notably, having provided £15 million worth of computing power to schools.

What exactly will the money mean in terms of the enrichment of student education? Will computers in the classroom live up to the hype?

The Schools IT2000 policy document puts forward a number of worthy objectives. Rephrased in the form of questions, they present serious challenges to the Minister for Education if such investment is to be justified.

So, will ICTs reduce the risk of a new division between "information haves and have-nots" by ensuring equal access to new technologies for all young people? Will they make young people more familiar with ICTs, so they become more employable and the Irish economy continues to flourish?

Will they enhance education by "providing rich, exciting and motivating environments" and promoting "creativity, imagination and self-expression"? And what about promoting emphasis on information handling over memorising facts?

A further question might be appended: Why is the corporate world suddenly so interested in acting as a benefactor to education?

Taking a critical look in an essay, Computers in the Classroom, published in Irish Education for the 21st Century, DCU lecturer Brian Trench writes that the claimed social and educational benefits can only be realised if there are accompanying changes in "the pattern of educational resource provision, in the culture of the educational system and in syllabi and the curricula".

He writes: "We can expect that existing social divisions within education will be hardened rather than lessened through the provision of ICTs in schools unless there are formal and explicit measures to correct current and emerging distortions." Trench goes on to say that it seems almost trite, but necessary, to remark that it is teachers, the curriculum, and the school ethos, much more than equipment, that determine whether students are motivated and stimulated to express themselves imaginatively.

THE NORMALLY enthusiastic Minister for Education and Science, Micheal Martin, goes into overdrive when it comes to promoting links between the education and the corporate world, with ICTs being the main area of intersection. This emerging sponsorship is not just a feature of the Irish education landscape.

Trench notes that in any consideration of the role of computers in the classroom, it is difficult to avoid the presence of Microsoft founder Bill Gates. At the launch of Windows 95 in Dublin, Gates declared that education was the sector in which the new computer and communications technologies can have the greatest impact. His vision of the application of these technologies to educational innovation and their application to "the perfect marketplace" is closely related, writes Trench.

Gates was beside Gerhard Schroder in February this year when the German Chancellor announced his government's plans to bring all schools online by 2001 and to spend £50 million on improving computer literacy in German schools. In October 1997, he was with Tony Blair to announce the National Grid for Learning, in which all 32,000 schools in Britain are to be linked by 2002.

The Government here launched Schools IT2000 in 1997 as three-year programme with a £40 million budget - £24 million on equipment, software and wiring, with the remainder allocated to training, curriculum resources and support.

On November 25th this year, the Minister announced a further £81 million would be invested to support the use of technology in schools.

The corporate sector, in the form of Eircom, has provided a computer and Internet access to every school, while Intel became involved in the development of ScoilNet, the schools' network. ScoilNet comprises three zones: curricular, community and commerce. This last area, which has yet to launched, will sell education-linked products. Jerome Morrisey, director of the National Centre for Technology in Education, says: "It's meant to be a convenience and there will be quite a screening process. It will be maintained by Intel with no involvement from the NCTE."

Intel had up to 40 people working on ScoilNet over nine months. "The attraction for us is that we have an overwhelmingly superior website," says Morrissey.

Does all of this mean that Bill Gates's vision of "the perfect marketplace" is about to hit Irish schools? Of course, schools are already inundated with packs and posters from the corporate world eager to target their future audience, but ICTs may bring penetration on a much larger, and less easily controlled, scale.

Trench says the training of teachers in relation to educational technology should be concentrated on equipping them to guide their students in "making discriminating use of frequently seductive software and services . . . By contrast with the need to ensure that schools provide an environment in which information is handled with care, the technical side of the training is relatively trivial."

He adds: "The challenge to teachers and to the schools system is to assert and to develop the educational rationale and the teaching and learning context for technology projects. Individual schools have been encouraged to do this and many are demonstrating good practice.

"The NCTE has an important role in evaluating products and in developing models for their effective use. But the bigger picture is crudely drawn and some of the orientation is questionable."

Trench warns that if the educational priorities are not clearly established, it is possible that "a great deal of money could be spent without any measurable or significant gains to the quality of education".

Irish Education for the 21st Century is published by Oak Tree Press in commemoration of trade unionist Michael Enright.