CONSUMER
Students to get affordable laptops
03-08-2007
by Emmet Ryan
Third level students are to be provided with cut-price laptops to promote the use of the devices in Irish universities and Institutes of Technology.
The Higher Education Student Laptop Programme is a new agreement between Intel, Dell, HP, Microsoft, AIB and Vodafone that offers students a more affordable way of getting their hands on their own laptop. The laptops purchased through the initiative will be pre-loaded with software such as Microsoft Office Professional Suite. They will also have a broadband option, which will be ready for use on existing third level campus networks. The laptops will also be covered by HP and Dell's three-year next-business-day on-site repair warranty.
Under the initiative, five different Dell and HP laptop models are available to students ranging in price from just under EUR1,000 to almost EUR1,400. AIB has introduced an introductory low rate loan rate loan for students who wish to avail of the offer.
University College Dublin is the first Irish third level institution to adopt the Student Laptop Programme. "Having worked closely with industry, we are now ready to offer our students better and more affordable ways to purchase a laptop computer," said Seamus Shaw, IT chief service officer at UCD.
"At present, around 20 percent of all students at Belfield own their own laptop. And with this new initiative we might expect that up to 75 percent of all students will own their own laptop over the course of the next three years," he said. "With the core of the Belfield campus, including on-campus accommodation, now supporting 100 percent wireless internet access, UCD students can use laptops to access information and the internet from almost anywhere."
The new scheme is the latest in a series of initiatives launched this year to give students cheaper access to technology. In January Microsoft, the Union of Students of Ireland, the National Centre for Technology in Education and the Combined Higher Education Software Trust joined together to launch the Software4Students plan which made cut-price Microsoft software available to second and third level students.
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