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Fine Gael on Science
Read more about: Education 
Fine Gael have announced their policies on Science. I haven’t much time to comment on them but here is a few quick points.
Summer Lab Fund
“Our universities, institutes of technology and other third level colleges have modern, well-equipped laboratories which lie mostly idle during the summer months. A special fund should be made available to our third level colleges to provide summer programmes in science, technology and engineering. Students participating in the programmes would have the opportunity to carry out experiments and procedures using modern equipment under expert tuition and supervision.
This will just take more time from researchers work. If we want people to be researching then we need to give them time in which to do it. Summer is often a very productive time as there are no distractions.
Science Clusters
“Individual schools should be encouraged to pool together to form clusters within which additional commitments could then be made to develop science and technology within each cluster. For example, laboratory technician hours could be allocated to schools on this clustering basis. This kind of integrated approach to providing facilities would allow students in schools which currently don’t have up-to-date science facilities to avail of science programmes without delay.
This is in fact a very good idea. Probably work better in cities then countryside but still good.
Laptops for Every Child
“Every child, upon entering secondary school, should receive a laptop computer. This radical measure will turn the laptop into the school bag of the future and will form the centrepiece in the development of our second level system and could be done at very little cost – low-cost, small, durable laptops are available to mass produce at a relatively small cost and have been used successfully elsewhere to provide children with vital IT education.
“It is estimated that the cost of providing each of our 334,000 second level students with a laptop would cost approximately €23m – a small proportion of the €252m which has been set aside for ICT education at primary and secondary level under the National Development Plan and has not yet been dispensed by the Department.
So to provide 334,000 second level students laptops cost 23 million. Or €69 per laptop. We are not talking state of the art here are we?
They must be getting the laptops from Bangalore, where they claim a laptop could be made for $47 (without actually explaining how).
Given that OLPC is desperately struggling to get its unit prices down to $100 dollars a piece (and is around $88 away from that), I’ll take their €69 laptop price with a bucket of salt.
Maybe the mean the Vetec Laptop pro
85 euro in Smyths.
Actually by picking the Vetec “laptop” this solves the main problems with this idea.
If you give real laptops to every secondary school student then every drug addict in the area will hang around outside schools looking for a first year to mug so the laptop can be sold. A toy laptop reduces the chances of mugging.
If the laptop gets “stolen” will it be replaced. If they replace every lost or stolen “real” laptop then I predict that many secondary school students will boost their pocket money by selling a laptop a week to university students. A toy laptop won’t type up thesis.
Many school bags are already very heavy. Toy laptops weigh less than real laptops. Supplying the Vetec laptop will help reduce the risk of students getting injured carrying heavy bags.
The cost of installing and maintaining a network capable of handling up to a thousand computers into every school would be huge. Vetec laptops don’t work on a network so money saved there.
Teachers would have to provide all their material electronically if the students used laptops. Many of the older teachers would need extensive and expensive training on IT skills. Toy laptops are designed to be used out of the box by a 3 year old so the average 60 year old teacher should be able to use it after just 2 to 3 hours of training.
And people accuse Fine Gael of not thinking through the peoblems with their big ideas.