State lags in school technology league

Net Results: Christmas is coming early for the kids at Wellington College, Belfast. Over the next five weeks the secondary school will get an extra 109 computers and access to a wide range of new e-learning software to make learning a multimedia experience.

Teachers will also benefit from the technological windfall with each staff member getting a networked computer on their desk that will be used to record attendance and performance.

An interactive whiteboard linked to a rooftop projector will also be installed in every classroom enabling video clips and other media to be used easily in lesson plans.

Most of Wellington's technology initiatives are being funded through the Department of Education of Northern Ireland's groundbreaking $100 million ( €87.3 million) C2K scheme, which will revolutionise the way teachers, pupils and administrators interact in Northern Ireland.

The five-year project - one of the world's biggest e-learning projects - will give 330,000 children in primary and secondary schools in Northern Ireland access to high-speed internet and a virtual classroom. Every child will receive a secure internet address when they enter primary school and access to new messaging technologies and video conferencing.

Technology training and new Web communities for teachers, where they can share ideas, are also part of C2K.

But perhaps the most important element of the project is its ability to free up teachers from managing technology. Under an outsourcing deal, Hewlett-Packard will manage the infrastructure for schools. This will take away much of the responsibility for keeping equipment running from schools. To put it bluntly, if something breaks, Hewlett-Packard should fix it.

Teachers in the Republic reading this article will be green with envy. Despite making some good progress since 1998, Ireland remains a laggard in its use of technology in schools, and is ranked 11th out of 15 EU states in terms of the number of computers to pupils. The current pupil-to-computer ratio is hovering at one to 11.5, well below the three-to-one ratio enjoyed by EU leader Denmark.

Coming late to the technology revolution, the Government has pumped €130 million into computers for schools over the past five years. But this financial commitment pales in comparison to the millions allocated to Northern Irish schools.

There are also signs the Government has taken its eye off the ball. In the last budget, Minister McCreevy slashed €20 million off the budget for the technology to schools programme. The Government is also dithering over plans to introduce broadband to schools by holding out for an industry handout rather than stumping up cash to adopt its own viable broadband policy.

Minister Ahern's strategy to tax telecoms firms to pay to connect schools to broadband looks like it may fall foul of European legislation. And even if it goes ahead, it could take many months to generate the revenue required to kit out the nation's schools with adequate broadband links.

The Government argues that profitable firms such as Eircom, Vodafone and O2 should help foot the cost of providing technology to schools. It can point to similar deals in Europe where incumbent firms such as KPN in the Netherlands have agreed to link all schools to broadband free. There is merit in sponsorship deals. After all, children will most likely drive the uptake of the new technology. But there is a certain irony in the Government raising billions of euros from the sale of Eircom and then demanding that a private company subsidise the State's education budget.

The chronic lack of broadband and networking capabilities in Irish schools is a crucial factor that is turning millions of euros of computer equipment into glorified word processors. After all, teachers cannot be expected to wait minutes for Web pages to download on narrowband links while teaching large classes of hyperactive 10-year-olds.

But providing broadband to schools will not, on its own, provide a learning environment that will create the well-educated workforce that is required to maintain Ireland's competitiveness.

One of the biggest issues faced by schools is maintaining and refurbishing the equipment. Too often computers are put out of action and left to gather dust with no technical support or money available to fix them.

Likewise, pupils get little or no value by using out-of-date computer equipment that is incapable of connecting to high-speed broadband links. This will become a major issue when broadband is finally delivered to schools.

The Department of Education in Northern Ireland overcame this problem through centralised purchasing and its outsourcing deal with Hewlett-Packard. But there are signs that Irish schools will fiercely defend their independence by refusing centralised purchasing and any outsourcing.

Proponents of the current system - where each school is awarded its own grant to purchase equipment - argue that it enables schools to tailor purchasing to individual needs. But it also removes the potential benefits to the State from buying computer equipment in bulk. It is also likely to produce patchy and uneven results throughout the school system, with some schools managing technology projects much better than others.

Talks with the technology industry about adopting a more co-ordinated approach to delivering technology and training into schools have been proceeding at a snail's pace. And some of the biggest ICT firms in the State fear there is no Government commitment to radically tackle the issue of integrating technology into the classroom in a meaningful way.

Despite the obvious bottlenecks in the system, there is also an ominous silence at the Department of Education about plans for technology in education. The current three-year strategy ends at the end of December and there has been little or no public debate on the merits of its past ICT strategy or its future plans.

The new Government strategy for technology in education - which is currently being devised - needs to address these issues and deliver joined-up thinking on the issues of broadband, procurement and maintenance. Otherwise, Irish education standards will fall behind those of our global competitors.