The Irish National Teachers' Organisation has said every primary school must have an Internet website and every pupil must have his or her own email address by 2000.
Senator Joe O'Toole, the INTO general secretary, said ensuring that every primary pupil had an email address was both a cheap and attainable objective. "We must facilitate every primary school in the State having its own website where traditionally it had a school magazine," he said in a statement. "Anticipating the time when every home will be connected to the Internet, it should be remembered that for the majority of small primary schools the website would be cheaper, more practical and more flexible than a magazine for communication with parents and the community."
He said a team of primary teachers should be seconded to work on harnessing new technology to make sure that there would be a "seamless interchange" from the old primary school curriculum to the new curriculum when it is published next year.
"No pupil should leave the primary sector without keyboard skills," he went on. "Literacy must include computer literacy. Leaving pupils without the skills required to open a computer is as unacceptable as not allowing a child to learn to open a book and read. It is as nonsensical as requiring them to use quills instead of pens for writing."
He said the INTO's other objectives in this area are an online Internet resource for teachers which would be updated daily, and for every primary teacher to have the necessary training and skills to use the emerging communications and information technologies.