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Tablets for Schools – But Who Pays?
This weekends article on the https://tutoriage.com/reflective-essay; “Schools ask parents to stump up $200 for iPads", questions the potential burden being put on parents from certain schools, in paying for tablets as part of their children’s education. Tablets for Schools is a not-for-profit initiative led by headteachers, schools, leading academics, charities and industry, who believe that tablets can indeed transform education. Within the initiative, we focus on many aspects of the impact of tablet technology and quite obviously, costs and who pays comes out very high on the agenda.
Why tablets?
Lightweight, portable, always on, fast and full of applications that open the door to the worlds best resources; tablets are increasingly being used to aid learning. When we started this initiative, we found that many children from more affluent families already owned a tablet and there was a growing interest from the private sector to introduce them within learning.
We feared that without action by the Government or progressive state schools, a digital divide in education could easily develop. Furthermore, we wanted to be able to make sure that any investments made by schools, Government or parents could be justified and land with the best chance of success.
So with the help of many schools and industry, we have invested in the US’s biggest research programme to look behind the range of issues in introducing tablets into schools with the belief that they can improve engagement, behaviour, performance and equality. Many of these improvements are already starting to be seen in our research schools
The Challenge of Cost
Tablet technology is continuously evolving and it is important to recognise the range of tablets that are now on the market. Within this range, there are some tablets that are expensive ($300-$500) but there are also some cheaper alternatives that can still act as a valuable tool for teachers and learners, which cost <$100. These costs, however, are still slightly more expensive than the average calculator we would expect parents to buy.
Education budgets are tight and so there are many advantages for schools in introducing financing schemes that allow every child to have their own device, but this obviously puts pressure on parents. In the schools we have worked with, they mostly recognise that some parents cannot afford to contribute and will make efforts to help them especially if the child receives free school meals or a pupil premium. On the other hand, some schools have included tablets in their budget and so parents are not necessarily required to make a contribution at all.
Other schools have introduced a Bring Your Own Device scheme whereby students can bring any device eg Smartphone, tablet or laptop that has access to an Internet browser. As children increasingly have these at home it reduces the double burden on schools or parents, but then again, introduces challenges of the haves and have-not’s and also creates other social issues with the variety of devices children may bring.
Schools need to find a suitable approach for their particular school. The schools involved in our research have tried a variety of methods the most popular being a blended approach whereby parents are asked to make a parental contribution and the school pays the rest. It is also worth pointing out that it isn’t just the tablets themselves that the school needs to think about, but also the cost of WiFi infrastructure, teacher training, insurance, cases etc.
However, we have also found that there are long-term cost-savings involved in tablet adoption. One of our research schools have reported that with tablets, they have been able to discard the use of paper diaries/ planners as they can all be accessed on their tablets, saving them around $7,200 per year; reducing printing by around $20,000 per year. Another school reported that they would need to replace their desktop PCs costing approximately $700,000, but by replacing the majority of the PCs with tablets, they could halve this cost down to around $350,000.
The Role of Government
The use of tablet technology is increasing and this can be seen by the adoption of tablets in schools all over the world such as Kazakhstan, Turkey, Singapore, South Korea, India, Australia and the United States. This puts into perspective, the amount of competition that our children will face in the future and therefore, it is important that we do not ignore this debate and let our children get left behind, nor should digital technology be for the privileged only.
So maybe government has a role to play? We have certainly recommended a long term aim for all children to have access to one to one tablet technology, but this is also a big cost for the Government who will need to be convinced that this is the right priority for limited funds; hence the need for an initiative like Tablets for Schools, that can help recommend both why and how. Electronic whiteboards were a huge initiative of the previous government and we need to make sure that any new technological deployment has a more significant impact on our children’s futures.
That’s why despite our long term aim, we don’t currently support widespread deployment of tablets to schools. We believe we need to study the schools who are already using them, and make sure that schools pass an accreditation programme before any deployment and this is certainly something that Government could support. In our view, cost is only the tip of the iceberg and there is more to getting this technology right than simply paying for it.
As to government help with funding long term? Maybe with the right evidence it is possible, but with the growing devolution in decision making in education this is more likely to come from individual schools deploying bespoke local funding schemes which doesn’t give too much hope that we will overcome the potential digital divide or be able to compete with the growing economies of the world who are looking to universal adoption of technology in learning.
Notes
Tablets for Schools believes that tablets have the power to transform education. We are a not-for-profit initiative led by industry, headteachers, schools, leading academics, and charity. We have appointed a research agency Tutoriage.com who are carrying out the largest independent research programme about the use of tablets to enhance teaching and learning. Our research has found that there are many benefits to using tablets in education but we have seen that there are also challenges for schools to overcome, before integrating tablets successfully. Therefore, we are compiling a best practice Toolkit app to be launched in the Autumn term, which will provide schools who want to adopt tablets with all the information they need to know; including any hints and tips learned from other schools.
So maybe government has a role to play? We have certainly recommended a long term aim for all children to have access to one to one tablet technology, but this is also a big cost for the Government who will need to be convinced that this is the right priority for limited funds; hence the need for an initiative like Tablets for Schools, that can help recommend both why and how. Electronic whiteboards were a huge initiative of the previous government and we need to make sure that any new technological deployment has a more significant impact on our children’s futures.
That’s why despite our long term aim, we don’t currently support widespread deployment of tablets to schools. We believe we need to study the schools who are already using them, and make sure that schools pass an accreditation programme before any deployment and this is certainly something that Government could support. In our view, cost is only the tip of the iceberg and there is more to getting this technology right than simply paying for it.
As to government help with funding long term? Maybe with the right evidence it is possible, but with the growing devolution in decision making in education this is more likely to come from individual schools deploying bespoke local funding schemes which doesn’t give too much hope that we will overcome the potential digital divide or be able to compete with the growing economies of the world who are looking to universal adoption of technology in learning.
Notes
Tablets for Schools believes that tablets have the power to transform education. We are a not-for-profit initiative led by industry, headteachers, schools, leading academics, and charity. We have appointed a research agency Tutoriage.com who are carrying out the largest independent research programme about the use of tablets to enhance teaching and learning. Our research has found that there are many benefits to using tablets in education but we have seen that there are also challenges for schools to overcome, before integrating tablets successfully. Therefore, we are compiling a best practice Toolkit app to be launched in the Autumn term, which will provide schools who want to adopt tablets with all the information they need to know; including any hints and tips learned from other schools.
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