Lobbyists demand IT strategy in education

04-12-2006

by Emmet Ryan

The Government isn't investing enough in technology for Irish schools according to ICT Ireland.

The Ibec group that represents the Irish high-tech sector said the proposed increase in funding in the Government's pre-budget Book of Estimates was not sufficient to meet the needs of Irish students. The total proprosed investment of EUR31.7 million represents EUR21.7 million in current expenditure and EUR10 million in capital expenditure -- a EUR10 million increase on total expenditure from last year.

The 2007 figure equates to EUR40 being spent on every student in Ireland compared to the EUR110 being spent per student in England. Ibec has called for more funding to be allocated in Wednesday's budget and for the Department of Education and Science to introduce a strategy to develop technology in schools. "It's not enough to throw money at the problem," ICT Ireland executive Hannah Grene told ENN. "They don't have an overall coherent strategy in place."

ICT Ireland could not give a figure on how much needs to be invested as it said more research on requirements necessary to improve access to technology for students needs to be done. Grene said a clear strategy would make the financial requirements clearer.

"There needs to be an overall policy document. A lot has been going on in this area with the NCCA [National Council for Curriculum and Assessment] coming out with an ICT framework, and education centres across Ireland are putting a lot of work into developing technology in schools," said Grene. "We now need something to bring it all together."

Grene said the quality of hardware in many schools meant pupils were unable to benefit fully from the availability of broadband. She said the Government needs to focus on improving the quality of PCs and other devices in order to ensure students could capitalise on the wealth of resources available online.

"Technology is increasingly a key part of modern life and work and it is also an extremely valuable way of improving the education we offer young people," said ICT Ireland director Kathryn Raleigh.

Last week the Government announced a EUR25 million investment in four technology-based second level subjects. "Recent announcements by the Government suggest a genuine commitment to educating our students to succeed in the knowledge society. The long-term technology policy that Minister [Hannafin] is suggesting must be matched by a substantial increase in capital and current expenditure in 2007. The current estimates do not reflect this reality," said Raleigh.