Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 28 January 2015

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Social Protection

Information Technology in Schools: Camara Ireland

1:00 pm

Mr. John Fitzsimons:

They are on our website, camara.org. One can find them under the annual reports and monitoring and evaluation and one can read through the progression.

On the question about the profits made by Apple, that is why we operate. Some schools in Ireland can afford to buy iPads for children at €600 a go, but the vast majority cannot. For €50 we can source, refurbish and ship a computer to Africa. I would challenge anyone here to tell me what educational impact would be different for a child who is given a laptop or iPad. It is minimal, if anything at all. We do not need to buy iPads for children in Ireland. This solution has proved to work very successfully.

I am fortunate enough to be a father of two, and my daughter will start school next September. Coincidentally, she will attend the same school as I did. I suspect I will be horrified when I walk into the classroom I was in 35 years ago to see that it is exactly the same as when I left it. There may be an interactive whiteboard, but I suspect technology to change the quality of education will not be present. Technology has changed everything. I respectfully disagree with Senator O'Donnell. If schools do not have technology, they are at a significant disadvantage.