Laptops for all teachers?

A laptop for everyone in the audience? The Minister for Education Dr Michael Woods said recently that he had asked his department to develop a programme that will make a laptop available to every teacher in the State, on a phased basis over four years.

The wider education community has, by and large, ignored this announcement.

Most thought it was an election promise, as it was announced at the Fianna Faíl Ardfheis. Even Jerome Morrissey, director of the National Centre for Technology in Education, was confused, when EL spoke to him, a week after the March 8th speech.

However, a Department of Education spokesman has confirmed that it will happen, though it's only at the very early stages of planning at present. (This may be something of a euphemism.)

Paddy Bates, of the Computer Education Society of Ireland, is of the opinion that it's all going to happen six years too late. "Teachers should have been provided with laptops after they had completed their training, while they were still enthusiastic about IT."