Category: Software

Why banning computers would deprive those most in need

14-Jan-10 10:44

The Daily Mail has today being venting about the downsides of the Home Access Grant scheme and seems to conclude that too much time spent in front of a computer is bad for a child's development and that computers should be banned from our schools.

We've been banging the drum for the Home Access Grant on behalf of our client BLi Education, for a while now, even more so this week as Gordon Brown pledged to use the scheme to get 270,000 low-income families online to help with their kids education.

The vast majority of the national media have run with the story this week, focussing on that pledge, but the Daily Mail has taken a sideways look at it.

Of course it's naive and wrong to expect that every single media outlet will obediently follow the line that's put out on the press release.

But it is frustrating when a journalist gets an idea in his or her head and won't shift from it. For example what this article fails to mention is that children from the most disadvantaged backgrounds could benefit hugely in terms of improving their GCSEs and even their job prospects through the Home Access scheme.

Research by education software specialists BLi Education, one of the six official suppliers of the free computer equipment under the scheme, suggests that with technology at home children could achieve a 2 grade improvement some GCSE subjects. That means those pupils who would have got a D, could now get a B at GCSE with home access to technology.

I would applaud the use of the latest technology in my local school. After all, you wouldn't rip up the state-of-the-art sports pitches or pour concrete into the Olympic-sized swimming pool if the school had one.

If you're going to ban computers why not get rid of all innovative educational tools such as calculators, ink pens, books and the good old overhead projector?

The days of the abacus and feathered quill are long gone and technology is a tool for learning just as books and field trips are. And it doesn't mean that children spend all their time playing computer games, perhaps the ever-improving exam results in GCSE and A Level each year suggest they might well be learning something too.

By Simon Peevers