Ultra-fast Broadband is set to save NZ Education

According to Steve Joyce says “ultra fast broadband to schools will transform the education system by enhancing the way teachers teach and children learn”

"Over the next five years, 97 per cent of schools will receive ultra fast fibre enabling speeds of 100 Mbps plus. The remaining 3 per cent of schools, which are in the most remote locations, will receive a high speed wireless or satellite connection - a tender process for broadband provision to these schools will get underway next month. No schools will miss out."

This sounds monumentally transformative and within 5 years all these schools will be ‘wired’ as Anne Tolley calls it.

I begin to wonder about the hardware in school that students have access to. How many classrooms have a significant number of computers. How many does it take to qualify as ‘significant’. One-to-one laptops is great in theory but the expense associated and the current nature of curriculum delivery means it is far from necessary.

• How many machines do you think is sufficient for a classroom?
• Are we going to dicuss the relative merits of a MAC when compared with the initial outlay?
• Can someone input here a explain the nature of government subsidy and school resourcing that will mean that hardware provision in school will support the UFB initiative in the given timeframe?

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