HERBERT HOOVER, in the 1930s, promised the US electorate two cars in every garage and a chicken in every pot in his efforts to impress the voters.
But this is the 1990s, and the Government here has taken a different, high tech approach, committing itself to an ambitious programme to install new computers in every school in the State.
While yesterday's announcement, coming as it does as we await word of an impending election, might make the cynical dismiss the scheme as an unseemly dip into pork barrel politics, this would be unfair. The Schools IT 2000 millennium project has merit.
"Our objective should be to become the intelligent island of Europe," the Taoiseach, Mr Bruton, stated, becoming the western twin of Singapore in the information technology sector. He acknowledged that there was a "lot of ground to be made up" if Ireland was to participate in the information technology revolution at a high level.
To this end Mr Bruton announced the Schools IT 2000 project with a budget of £30 million over five years, divided between computer equipment for the 4,000 schools and the training of teachers.
The plan calls for the training of 10,000 teachers in the use of the Internet. A further 3,500 would receive familiarisation training for professional development and 600 would be trained as teacher trainers. The training, according to the Minister for Education, Ms Breathnach, would mostly be provided in the teachers' own schools.
It proposes a Scoilnet Initiative" to provide information and communications technology advisory and support services for schools. These are to be made available on the Internet.
It also proposes the selection of 40 pilot schools with a record in delivering IT training to students. These would become the test bed for the development of both practices and curriculum products for other schools.
Skibbereen has been designated as an outreach centre for Cork RTC. It will become a virtual campus with traditional class arrangements as well as computer and video links with Cork and when necessary farther afield.
A far less crystalised proposal calls for the creation of a "Digital Park" where IT based service companies, such as firms involved in sound recording or video and film production, would be able to transfer images and sounds around the world.
The commitment to buy computer equipment for schools is a good idea, but given the existing paucity of school based computers, even £30 million represents a drop in the ocean.
The Republic has about three computers for every 100 secondary school pupils and one per 100 primary pupils, according to the Information Society report. If all of the £15 million earmarked for equipment was spent on computers, about 10,000 units based on £1,500 for a computer with sound, colour screen, modem, Internet connection and printer could be purchased.
This would result in about 2 1/2 computers per school over the five years of the programme. This undoubtedly nudges up the numbers of machines per 100 students, but Mr Bruton indicated yesterday that the Council of Europe recommends that there should be 33 computers per 100 students. We are nowhere near that despite the proposed investment.
Funding for the training effort looks a bit better, about £1,100 per teacher, but this assumes the budget will be shared equally for all. This will not be the case as 600 teachers will become teacher trainers. They will have to travel to training or to meet teachers. A proportion of the budget will go on transport, expenses, documentation and other costs.
Challenged on the level of funding, Mr Bruton said industry would also be included in this effort, although mainly on a voluntary basis. One interesting innovation to help boost the number of computers in schools involves asking companies, which annually discard 46,000 systems, according to Government figures, to make these machines available to schools.
If even half or a quarter of these reached schools it would have a massive impact on the number of systems per 100 pupils and at relatively low cost to the State. These systems might cause problems, however, due to incompatibility, broken bits that can't be fixed free, and non transferability of software programmes. We would also be exposing students to out of date equipment given the very short shelf life of most small systems, which are considered "old" after just three years.
Despite the drawbacks and limitations, the Schools IT 2000 programme does represent a genuine effort to put IT into the schools and get teachers involved in delivering the IT message. It is for the voter to decide if the timing of the announcement has as much to do with electioneering as educating future generations.
