Irish Election are pleased to announce our collection of Irish 
Hanafin Laughs off Cheap Laptops for Schools too Quickly
Read more about: Academia, Education, Fianna Fail, Fine Gael, Government, Irish Politics
We had this up yesterday about the Fine Gael proposals on Schools and the piece about cheap laptop provision to all students. Hanafin has laughed off the possibility of supplying laptops to all 344,000 secondary pupils for a total of €23m – or just under €67 each. The main reason is the requirement for software suites and additional cost factors, with support from Damien and SK among others. However I think she did so too soon.
Now Hayes was working off the assumption of providing xo-1 for all kids, developed at MIT and designed to sell for E132. Indeed this model is less than ideal for developing skills since it misses out on key functionalities. Here then is an idea that might help to push this a bit further forward.
Why not use a laptop which is running on Ubuntu? The fast, free linux OS-which gets good reviews- is capable of doing the basics that windows can do, offers free suites of software comparable to microsoft products. It also allows for a much more detailed education for young people in that they develop skills which really are integral to the knowledge economy i.e. familiarity with coding, software, usability and the potential to progress rapidly in ability on a single machine (from use to development). It can be done (see here) and if walmart is to be believed it can be done cheaply (around E120).
I don’t expect that any of our dial-up TDs will take me up on this and, as a lay-man, I would be interested to hear what tecxperts like Seaghan, Damien, Tom, Bernie and others think about this. Technology in education is essential when countries can churn out thousands of engineers in one session. Sneering at plans is all well and good for a minister, but I would prefer to see her take on the plans and improve them. The aim of a cheap laptop to students is hardly ridiculous, nor even the lesser option of a bank of cheap desktops in every school. Such facilities should not be the preserve of fee-paying schools only.
I was ubuntu occasionally. We should get the children to setup their own wireless cards then they would be brilliant.
I genuinely believe that what has happened here is someone has missed out by a factor of ten - they intended to budget E690 or so but did the math wrong. The XO story is just an attempt to cover their tracks.
Anyone wth a grasp of the XO machine would see that it is completely unsuitable for this purpose. It’s unsuitable by design. They weren’t trying to make a laptop for secondary schools to use, it was for younger children in developing countries. The machines don’t even have a CD/DVD drive.
As I mentioned on my blog, even if they intend to use the XO laptop, FGs proposals would involve giving students an underpowered, unfit-for-purpose laptop on day one of their first year, then expecting them to use the same machine for five years until Leaving Cert, without requiring an update or upgrade.
FG got their math wrong, hugely wrong. There may be some merit in the proposal - but that’s a separate debate. Until FG can get something as simple as (cost of laptop + maintenance + networking) x (number of school-aged pupils) correct, they have no place lecturing anybody on math.
This proposal really falls apart when we consider the cost implications for schools of 500 - 1000 pupils supporting the IT infrastructure required for that many users on a network.
I dont think your all that wrong Damien, the idea of delivering the entire thing for E23 million is a little bit far fetched. However my point is that behind the fuzz of using an XO-1 is an idea that might yield results for less cost.
Using a system like Ubuntu doesn’t have to breed familiarity with very basic computing-it can be part of a curriculum focussed on delivering computer literate (and potential developers, programmers and engineers) students to third level and putting Ireland on track in this regard.
I agree tech support is an issue but this has been trailled elsewhere so it may well work here too. As i said above, I am a layman this just strikes me as a bit of good sense emerging from a scrap-heap idea. What do you think? Would it be worthwhile (even on a bay of desktops)?
This has been announced as part of the Math and Science policy, and I think using a *nix platform like Ubuntu would fit very well into that; advanced mathematical programmes are available for those platforms. I’m a die-hard Apple user, so anything to see schools moving away from using MS products is a good thing in my book.
But this is about Math and Science. Fine Gael are, at a basic level, proposing that we use gadgets that are little more than calculators with Internet access to do five years worth of math, science and presumably the rest of the curriculum. It’s a total non-starter. They messed it up, and they should come clean on this.
No party should put out policy is ill-formed as this, and I count my own party in that. We’ve messed up before, and I wouldn’t hesitate to condemn it when we do. This FG proposal is ridiculous. FF’s handling of the math and science curricula has left much to be desired, I will admit, but if there is money going into science education it could be much better spent than this proposal.
Apart from Fine Gaels dreadful grasp of how to do a business case there is the question of whether giving laptops to kids is the right thing to do. We are a long way from a consensus that this actually helps children’s education.
Someone mentioned this is what we need to get a generation of engineers ou there. As an engineer I disagree. What is needed there is a focus on the fundamentals: maths, science, technology, and problem solving.
Access to laptops (or PCs) is fine for computer science and making students comfortable with these tools. But there are far more important things to focus on, and proven effective ways of teaching them that don’t involve spending over €500 a student just to line the pockets of HP/Intel/AMD or anyone else.
Having just internet access makes the suggested devices pretty useless in most parts of the country given the connectivity in this country. I’m also intrigued by the notion that most students have much more sophisticated computers at home - not from what I’ve seen. Seems like a lot of people are very out of touch with the real situation? As ever, it’s a shame for education when it becomes the usual political football.
I agree with SK’s sentiments - see http://www.amazon.com/User-Error-Resisting-Computer-Culture/dp/1896357792 for a critique on the social implications of computer use.
Also see http://www.edubuntu.org/
I agree with most of the comment on the technical level, BUT, the Hanafin response and the FG proposal both illustrate a fundamental mis-understanding of the issue.
I have lived and worked as a development person in a number of African countries and while we can point to Internet access as a reality in even the most backward it simply doesn’t happen at the level of the average school. In most cases they (the schools) don’t have electricity and whereas we can waffle on about solar panels and the like Internet access on the scale to support kids using PCs is not an option without power.
Don’t get me wrong, the use and support of modern tools for teaching/learning are critical to the development, but Negroponte’s concept, while laudable and worthy of support cannot work except in some countries where the infrastrucuture is reasonably well developed….
Which brings me to the hypocrisy of Hanafin. I live and work for part of my life in a remote part of Ireland. The local school has three computers amongst 15 pupils, wow, you might say, great stuff, but the youngest PC is 4 years old and the teachers have never had a moment’s training on how to use IT for education. They do a BRILLIANT job, based on their dedication to their work.
We wanted to share the satellite delivered broadband the local school has, but we were informed that the network was ‘private’ Paid for by our taxes….. The maintenance cost for the BB link is €1000 a month, it is used for <30hrs a month for <6months a year….
I heard an item on the radio that Hanafin has a budget of €250m for IT for schools but it is mostly unspent. The Principal interviewed on the show gave one anecdote, the Dept would pay for the installation of the ducting for interactive white boards but not for the wiring or the purchase and installation. His PCs were over 5 years old.
Who is in need of development then???
Another thought….
It is 44 years since the young scientist thing started. How the hell is it that we have this week another report from the Auditor Gen on e-gov - saying it doesn’t deliver… and the comment from the trade is ‘because the projects aren’t well managed’ so where has all that training been going all these years…..??
I’m not aware that there has been any training on project management being conducted on a sufficiently large scale. Certainly no evidence from the actions on display in public governance.
Just teach kids to type. It would be easy and cheap to do, and probably lead to more productivity gains than giving kids a computer to play Solitaire on during class.
Much time in offices is wasted by the inability of people to type quickly. It’s as bad as if we were still using pen and paper for everything.
For the sake of reference we all kicked the tires on the original idea quite a bit in 2006, see here
http://www.irishelection.com/11/theres-no-logic-in-laptops/
One point that I would highlight was the prolonged cost discussion. My (not that I’ve been involved in anyway shape or form on this idea, can’t have engineers who have worked in technology areas of industry since the early 90s pitching in on this sort of thing now can we) reckoning is that FG’s policy is not to go out on the morning and buy everyone 2nd level school child a laptop (naturally the Department of Education thinking probably does think like this and would rollout the program at the end of the school year and give new laptops for pupils who were off to college) but to start with a set of first years and then through spending the money each year build up so that all children have access to them.
My estimate was for say €300 or perhaps €250 per machine which would be €15million for 60,000 machines. Other estimates were €500, or even a 1,000. Fact is if Lenovo or Dell are quoting 600 for 1 laptop, you’d get that down significantly ordering 50,000 especially if you’re going to repeat business. We can argue those figures up and down but I don’t think the original intention was for the €69 laptops to be the solution here.
Dan,
The FG press release says:
You can’t get clearer than that on their intention, and how they have done their calculation. the NDP runs until 2013, so it’s got five years left to run. They have since gone on to say that yes, it is the XO laptop they intend to use.
FG have stuffed this one up, big time.
Damien, like I said I don’t think the “original” intention was for the €69 laptops to be the solution here. I can’t possibly guess where they came from into the discussion between the original proposal back in 2006 and now.
Of course I recognise that any such idea sounds a stretch for a government that can’t even ensure that all second level schools can offer the science facilities for chemistry experiments that students are required to do for the leaving cert.
Dan,
Fine Gael have issued a policy proposal which is being discussed here.
Fine Gael have proposed the provision of a sub-standard piece of technology, at half the price it currently retails for, with no provision for any supporting investment, as a way to help with Math and Science in Secondary schools.
It is Fine Gael who have said that the XO laptop should be used by all secondary school students in Ireland.
Science education is certainly not where it should be in Ireland; I’ve criticised government policy on this both in public and in private in the recent past.
But Fine Gael have here shown themselves unable to even prepare Press Releases about Technology in Education, let alone to actually deliver any improvements in the system. How are we to believe that Fine Gael would improve the education system? That would involve competently implementing their policies. If they can’t get the policy right, while in opposition, how are we to believe that they could implement reasonable policies when in government?
Looks like the electorate made the right choice.
I don’t think this is as badly planned as you might like to make out and certainly not enough to stretch to “Looks like the electorate made the right choice”. Granted, the XO isn’t the ideal piece of kit but ensuring that all students have access to a laptop shouldn’t be sneered at. Putting such a device in the hands of all students may go some way to ensuring national computer literacy among students, albeit basic. This would be a major step forward. At least the proposal from FG has a concrete deliverable that people can easily measure. Others have suggested that alternative laptop solutions could be delivered in and around the price point so I don’t think that part of the proposal is out of the question. Regarding the point on support, I’d agree that it’s a major omission from this document but I think they are close with the knowledge clusters and shared resources. However, I would think that they see the support coming from part of the reamaining ~€250million and this part of the document is a hardware proposal solely.Looking at the phrasing of the document I don’t believe the laptops would the sole computing resources but would be part of a set of tools equipping students for the fabled “knowledge economy”.
“Dan,
Fine Gael have issued a policy proposal which is being discussed here.”
Tetchy, aren’t we? Fine Gael issued a policy proposal in 2006, the one discussed here is evidently an iteration of that hence my reference to it. The proposal in 2006 made no reference to €100 laptops, so my contention that the X0 wasn’t meant to be part of these plans.
I’m quite open to the idea that the most recent press release was really referring to the per year cost of ramping up the provision of regular laptops as I outlined above but that somewhere along the line since it was issued someone thought it was a goof and the XO was wheeled out as a cover for that. Of course I could be wrong.
Dan,
We almost agree on some of it then; I also reckon FG intended this to be a much more expensive programme, but got the figures/language wrong and then tried to cover it with the XO. That certainly wasn’t the right thing to do, and has exposed an underlying absence of awareness of what an XO actually is, and what secondary school-aged kids in Ireland would actually need.
My point in all this is that Fine Gael really need to up their game if the Irish people are to take them seriously as an alternative Government. This issue is really a minor illustration of a much bigger problem.
I’m not aware that there has been any training on project management being conducted on a sufficiently large scale. That is certainly my point of view
I would like to confirm Tracy..yes there has been no such project managment yet !