Tom Hayes (Tipperary South, Fine Gael)
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Question 74: To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Education and Skills if she will support the provision of online text books for primary and post-primary schools; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [41338/10]

Mary Coughlan (Donegal South West, Fianna Fail)
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I support the provision of digital content for schools including the availability of text books on-line for both primary and post primary schools. As the Deputy will be aware, learning related digital content can take several forms such as content created by publishing companies for use in schools, learning content available on the national education portal site Scoilnet and content created by and shared among teachers and students. The availability of high-quality curriculum-related digital resources continues to be a priority under the ICT in Schools Programme of which on-line text books is an important component. My Department is committed to working with the Irish educational publishing industry and, with the Industry's co-operation and initiative, a number of demonstration projects and initiatives are already underway in schools. The Smart Schools Report recommends that the National Centre for Technology in Education, the technology sector and the education publishers explore the development of world class digital educational content. The Report also recommends that the NCTE should work with both public and private organisations to make the wealth of digital archives that are available accessible to schools. The NCTE and officials in my Department have held a number of meetings with publishers in order to progress these recommendations. The ICT Advisory Group, set up by my Department and which includes Industry representation, is currently examining, through its committee on digital content, how digital textbooks can be designed: what level of interactivity they should have and how teacher or student-generated content can add to the resource. The question of costs for any desirable digital learning resource such as textbooks remains unresolved. The cost of textbooks has traditionally been borne by parents and students. The Irish industry own the Intellectual property rights – unlike other countries where education authorities own the content and, consequently, can save money by quickly switching to online delivery as is the case in California. However, a simple digitised textbook is not the best answer in a 21st century learning environment where interactivity and student-generated content is desirable. In Europe the educational publishing industries are working to determine what an interactive digital learning resource should be and how it will be priced and offered to its market. European Schoolnet - a network of 31 Ministries of Education and which Ireland is an active member - are currently establishing a working group to propose solutions to these issues.

My Department will continue to work with the publishers and other suppliers of digital content to ensure that new and exciting forms of digital content will be accessible for schools.