Northern Irish schools get new laptops
18-02-2008
by Emmet Ryan

Every school in Northern Ireland will receive new laptops before June as part of a scheme that will see 20,000 laptops delivered in total.

The project is being rolled out by the Northern Ireland Department of Education and C2k, which is a body focussed on implementing technology in education across the region, and the scheme is being run in conjunction with software firm Northgate Education.

"This is a pioneering project by the Department of Education to provide 20,000 laptops to nursery, primary, post-primary, and special schools. We are confident that this huge investment will increase the pace at which ICT is being embedded in schools and will provide teachers with flexible and secure access to their school work," said Mary Kane, C2k implementation manager.

The C2k Managed Service Laptop Option provides schools with notebooks and carrying cases. It's up to the schools to decide how the laptops will be used. They could, for example, be used by teachers for their own school work or as an additional classroom computer. The programme will also provide software, including titles from a bank of 250 curriculum resources, as well as Windows XP and access to the Management Information System in the school.

"The introduction of the laptops has meant that now teachers can access school files at home, allowing them to download forms which are essential for the tracking the progress of pupils. It also enables teachers to access the intranet from home and upload files to print off at school. This enables teachers to keep their pupils up-to-date with news and events as they happen," Susan Mitchell, ICT co-ordinator at Grove Primary in Belfast which was one of the first schools to receive laptops under the programme.

The move is in stark contrast to the efforts to equip schools in the Republic with laptops. Just last month Fine Gael called for the Government to give an XO laptop, the laptop being promoted by the One Laptop Per Child scheme, to every secondary school pupil in the country. The Government said the plan was unworkable and that Fine Gael's estimate of a EUR23 million cost to the project was barely an eighth of what it would actually cost.

In early January the Government was criticised by the Irish National Teachers Organisation (INTO) for delaying IT funding to schools. Under the National Development Plan, EUR252 million was allocated for investment in ICT at primary and post-primary level over a seven-year period. The NDP was published in January last year, and to date the funding has yet to be spent, according to INTO