[30.08.2007 first posted on silicon republic]
Is the €252m earmarked for bringing Irish schools into the 21st Century enough or is it too little too late?

While some €252m has been set aside under the National Development Plan (NDP) to modernise Irish classrooms and equip teachers and students alike with competencies for the 21st Century world, there is a school of thought among educators that double this sum will be required.
At this stage a strategic committee set up by the Minister for Education and Science Mary Hanafin TD has yet to even decide where or how these funds will be allocated.
To ensure success, it is clear that these eminent educators must look back and learn harsh lessons from a previous effort to modernise schools that petered out and left a trail of disillusionment and bitterness in its wake.
When government funding for the technology in education scheme IT2000 ended in 2002, schools all over Ireland were left with no way to maintain the information and communication technologies (ICT) they had worked so hard to integrate into their curriculum.
Although every school had a basic standard of a computer with internet access, there was no follow-up, leaving outdated IT equipment to gather dust while educators struggled to keep up with ICT teaching trends.
After the Department of Education and Science launched the Schools IT2000 programme in 1997 the results were clear: the pupil to computer ratio had risen from 35:1 to 19.6:1 in primary schools and from 16:1 to 10:1 in secondary schools, with 98pc of schools connected to the internet.
Though these figures look impressive, a report from the National Policy Advisory and Development Committee (NPADC) also observed that the main factors discouraging the use of ICT in schools were lack of resources and training for educators.
The bottom line was that IT2000 was not sustained and after 2002 much ICT equipment in schools fell into disrepair with no means of funding their maintenance or replacement.
According to recent figures from the Teachers Union of Ireland (TUI), it is estimated that 50pc of computer facilities in Irish schools are unusable, while one fifth of computers are over six years old.
Alarmingly this audit found that only 4pc of computers were located in classrooms while 58pc were kept in a dedicated computer room.
Noel Malone, headmaster of Coláiste Chiaráin post-primary school and early adopter of ICT, likened the initial funding from IT2000 and its aftermath to feeding a man a feast for a week and then leaving him starved for the next six months.
“A lot of that investment was left to hang there and that was a terrible tragedy. In industry they don’t just put in desktops and laptops into a company and think they’re going to last forever,” he says.
“The reality of the situation is that ICT is neither integrated properly into the curriculum nor standardised,” comments Tomas Finneran, director of Flúirse, a company developing educational software and online ICT training courses for teachers.
“This summer we did our training course on ICT for some 250 teachers. The feedback on this was overwhelming. It really opened our eyes to just what teachers want: they are yearning for more support, more help, more advice, and they don’t have anywhere else to go,” he says.
President of TUI, Tim O’Meara says if teachers want to become proficient at technology they have to do it at their own expense, buying the hardware and software themselves.
“It should be an embarrassment for the Department of Education and Science that we are now believed to be one of the wealthiest countries in the world and yet we don’t deem it necessary as proper expenditure for schools to be provided with the necessary capital budget for computers and the necessary annual budget to keep them updated,” he says.
He adds that the reality of the situation is that right now there are schools at two ends of the spectrum: schools that are reasonably equipped and schools that are very poorly equipped.
“There should be a budget to provide each and every school with a basic standard. The first step is ensuring that a minimum standard of equipment in each school is adopted, with technical support and IT training for teachers,” he explains.
Seaghan Moriarty, IT advisor to the Irish Primary Principals Network (IPPN), believes that the one thing that has been missing from the landscape up until now is an actual policy document from the department on the integration of ICT and education.
Although there was initial enthusiasm from teachers in integrating new ICT technology into their teaching methods, says Moriarty, it petered out from 2002 onwards because there was no follow-up funding from the Government.
“Between 2002 and 2007 there was no money put into hardware or software and yet the Government seemed to expect teachers in schools to be using all these technologies,” he says.
He compounds the point by referring to the Digital Schools Awards launched and attended by Minister Hanafin, saying that while they are to be admired, “it is a miracle that schools can get to this level in the first place”.
A decade passed before a successor to IT2000 was announced. In February of this year the Government allocated €252m in funding for ICT in education from the National Development Plan (NDP).
However, this is to be split across five areas: professional development, broadband for schools, infrastructure, digital content, technical maintenance and support. And it has to last until 2013.
While the figure of €252m seems substantial, critics from both the technology industry and the teaching profession are claiming that this funding is too little, too late.
“The headline figure of €252m seems very impressive but when we analysed it further we realised it was over six years,” says Finneran.
“Not only was it divided between every primary and secondary school in the country but on top of that it is for hardware, software and IT equipment and infrastructure, so it is really diluted.
“When we took this into account it effectively worked out at €45 per student.
Compare that to international standards like the UK, the average student gets €110 per annum.”
In January UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown committed to raising this level to £1,000 per pupil per year by 2011 in what he is calling the cultivation of an educated nation.
“When was the last time we heard a senior Irish Government figure talk about IT in education, talk about Ireland being an education nation, or the Minister for Education talk about IT and its critical role in delivering excellence for Irish schoolchildren?” asks Martin Murphy, managing director for HP Ireland.
Minister Hanafin did, however, profess the aim of developing what she called an e-learning culture to “ensure that ICT usage is embedded in teaching and learning across the curriculum”.
A strategy group comprising experts from academia and the IT industry was set up in February with the aim of advising the minister on how best to allocate the €252m in implementing this e-learning culture.
Due to report back in May, there is still no sign of a decision from the strategy group. As back to school time approaches, primary and secondary school teachers the length and breadth of the country are still left wondering when and how much of the NDP funding they will receive.
“I don’t think we’re seeing any evidence of this being deployed. I think the problem is that we have to stop the talking and start doing something. It’s not about the amount of money, it’s about moving to action, to where there is 4:1 pupil to laptop ratio,” said Murphy.
“These are the goals we are working towards in Classroom 2000,” said Murphy of the ICT initiative in Northern Ireland in which HP plays an important role.
“Before this there hasn’t been a strategy for IT since 2002, the minister admitted that in the Dail last November. It certainly doesn’t appear to be a priority on anyone’s agenda,” he adds.
“Fundamentally I don’t think there is an appetite or any sort of forward momentum within Government to drive this agenda.”
While lack of a cohesive policy may be to blame for poor ICT presence in the classroom, Moriarty points out the obvious: more funding is required if everything from training to broadband infrastructure is to be sustained until 2013.
“If the proposed budget of €252m is not at least brought up to a realistic €500m, then we have much to fear for the economy and for the employability of our future pupils in the increasingly technology-driven global economy we live in,” warned Moriarty.
A budget of this magnitude seems unlikely, according to O’Meara. Already resigned to the fact that teachers have to pay for their own laptops for educational use, O’Meara says he expected at least some financial assistance.
“When I checked recently to find out if there was any tax relief available I was told by the Revenue Commissioners that a computer wasn’t wholly necessary for my job: it wasn’t deemed a proper expense,” he said in disbelief.
Finneran believes that the main obstacle to effective integration of ICT into our schoolrooms is the lack of assistance for teachers. “The biggest single hurdle holding back ICT in our schools is educating the educators.” Teachers, he says, need to be made aware of both the value and the range of ICT tools out there.
“The danger is that sometimes people concentrate on technology and not on the results. It’s a thing of ‘put the computer in the classroom, put an Interactive Whiteboard over there’, but it doesn’t work that way.
“What we need is for teachers themselves to be educated, and assisted and supported in maintaining the most use of these tools that are available. Other industries have embraced technologies years ago and the efficiencies are now there to be seen.
“If you look at a school as an education factory, they’re not exactly becoming more efficient at delivering their product because these technologies aren’t being used properly,” he says.
“It is crazy to think that we’re now in a knowledge society and we’re teaching the skill sets as we used to 10 or 15 years ago,” echoes Moriarty.
“Culturally you have a lot of middle-aged politicians who are essentially digital immigrants. It’s not part of their culture to even expect that these facilities and tools could be available to them and they really do need a paradigm shift in terms of their attitude.”
This frustration, it seems, is felt not just from those in academia but by industry leaders also.
“Does this Government get IT? We’re talking about the quality of the education system, we’re talking about producing highly skilled graduates through this system,” says Murphy.
“Fundamentally if we’re going to deliver on that talk we have got to start investing in primary schools and that is the only avenue that will bring success,” he adds.
With competition from eastern European countries and India in IT manufacturing we need to move up the ladder in the knowledge economy, urges Moriarty.
“How can we do that if there is no ladder to go up?”
The gold standard
Noel Malone, headmaster of Coláiste Chiaráin post-primary school in Croom, Co Limerick, became the first teacher outside of the US to receive the Dell Technology Award for Excellence in Education, presented to him by CEO Michael Dell.
With no Government funding, instead relying solely on fundraising from parents and the school itself, along with technical support and special pricing plans from Dell, Coláiste Chiaráin runs a network of 800 desktops and laptops for roughly the same number of students.
The school fully embraces new technology, using YouTube to access video clips and bring history lessons to life, while science teachers film lab experiments so students can watch them later on their laptops for revision.
Technical support comes from Dell, while the school pays for its own IT technician to maintain all 800 computers, a job which would have an entire team if translated to a business situation, says Malone.
“To a certain extent Government is wary of projects like our own because we have done it ourselves and it is proof that this kind of initiative is sustainable,” says Malone.
“There are very few projects that can go from strength to strength after five or six years. I think the Government is nearly scared of that because it shows what is possible.”
His school’s ICT project shows the potential of what could happen if it was replicated on a national basis, a feat he believes entirely possible.
Relying on the kindness of industry
A lack of Government-funded IT equipment has led to a large uptake in schemes like Tesco’s Computers for Schools which began in 1998. To date the initiative has provided more than ?10m in computing equipment to Irish schools.
“Such schemes are welcome and I believe that public-private partnerships are certainly one possibility to develop a long-awaited comprehensive e-learning and ICT infrastructure for our schools,” said Tomas Finneran of Flúirse.
However, schemes such as Tesco’s Computers for Schools are merely a manifestation of the current situation, where companies like Tesco recognise that schools are vastly under-resourced, Finneran claims.
“The situation merely highlights the flaws in the Irish education system and the realities that whilst the Government is seen to be investing in the future of our economy by investing €6bn in research and development at third and fourth level, it has completely missed the critical need for investment in the primary school sector where it would most benefit the future of our economy,” he says.
Finneran concedes that in the past 12 months there has been some progress, the €252m being a move in the right direction. The bottom line though, he said, is that a lot of the private sector has been pushing this progress forward.
Industry leaders like Martin Murphy, managing director of HP Ireland, believe that schemes like Computers for Schools, while extremely welcome, only provide computer equipment and no back-up, and this is where the Government must step in.
“Giving out free PCs is not the complete answer because in 12 or 15 months’ time they will be outdated and need maintenance.”
Murphy believes that the Government needs to engage with the industry in a meaningful way to employ the resources of those companies in delivering the entire ICT package.
However, some have criticised the Tesco Computers for Schools scheme. “It has suited the Government to allow schools to trade commercial access to children for odds and ends of equipment which they should be funding - it has let them off the hook,” says Joseph Fogarty, chairperson of the Campaign for Commercial-Free Education (CCFE).
Given a 10-week time frame, the school must collect vouchers to the tune of €261,000 for a €1,400 iMac.
Fogarty says underfunded schools have been exploited into promoting a supermarket because of the shortfall in ICT funding coming from the Government.
“The posters, target charts and collection boxes have pressurized parents, delivered marketing messages to a captive audience of kids and wasted teachers’ time,” he says.
“The payback to schools is miniscule both in terms of ICT equipment received and the undermining of schools’ educational mission.”
“The Government has also famously refused to regulate what companies can and can’t do in schools, making schools a gold mine for marketers eager to target children in an unregulated environment,” adds Fogarty.
By Marie Boran