NSW dodges schools sustainability issue

Beverley Head
Wednesday, 07 October 2009 03:50

IT People - Training

The NSW Department of Education and Training has flick-passed questions regarding the sustainability of its approach to the Digital Education Revolution which will see it gift notebook computers to each year of State High School students as they graduate from Year 12.

NSW is rolling out notebooks to Year 9 students which they can use throughout their school years, and which are theirs to keep if they complete Year 12. Other states have taken a different approach, with most allocating DER funds to schools to invest as they wish.

While the Lenovo notebooks, featuring Windows 7 and an impressive array of software, are being enthusiastically adopted by NSW’s Year 9 students, some educators are wondering how the programme will be sustained when the funding runs out, or when there is a change of Government.

iTWire’s questions, addressed to the NSW Department of Education and Training chief information officer, Stephen Wilson, who is the chief architect of the NSW schools roll out have not been answered. According to a media spokesman for the NSW DET; “The Australian Government has committed $442 million over the next five years for the Digital Education Revolution in NSW. As your questions relate to an Australian Government initiative, you should direct them to the Australian Government.”

However the questions related more to the NSW approach to the DER programme including whether NSW parents might have to pay for future Year 9 laptops if the Government doesn't stump up funds in future years.

While it is true that DER funding has come from the Commonwealth Government, the NSW Government is responsible for determining how the money is being spent in that State. Already educators in the other States, which are not planning to explicitly gift technology to graduating students, have expressed concerns regarding the long term sustainability of the DER programme.

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