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Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 12 Dec 2001

Vol. 546 No. 4

Written Answers. - Computer Programmes.

Róisín Shortall

Question:

152 Ms Shortall asked the Minister for Education and Science the position regarding the schools IT 2000 programme and the £81 million allocated for this programme; the amount of this money which has been allocated to date in 2001; the reasons for the delay in commencing further stages of this programme; and when the remaining funding will be allocated. [32056/01]

In 1997 my Department launched the schools IT2000 initiative designed to integrate modern information and communications technology into teaching and learning within the first and second level education systems. Over £40 million – 52 million – has been spent on the programme to date from central funds. In addition a further £20 million – 26 million – has been invested by public and private sector partners in the overall venture.

The specific objectives of schools IT 2000 were to put into place a permanent infrastructure to ensure that every student would have the opportunity to achieve computer literacy and equip himself or herself for participation in the information society and to give support to teachers in developing and renewing professional skills to enable them to utilise ICTs as part of the learning environment of the school.

These objectives were delivered through a series of initiatives. The technology integration initiative, TII, was the grant aiding of ICT infrastructure at first and second level schools. The teaching skills initiative, TSI, was a comprehensive training scheme providing ICT training for all teachers at first and second level education. School integration projects, SIP, were a number of school based projects determining the efficacy of information and communication technologies in the classroom. The focus of these innovative projects is to examine a range of ICT strategies and methodologies relevant to the broad spectrum of educational practices.
Schools IT 2000 has achieved the following: the pupil to computer ratios are now 17.7 for primary and 13 for post-primary schools, improved from 35 and 16, respectively, in 1998; every school now has a connection to the Internet, up from 25% in 1998, and 62% of second level schools now have multi-users web access, mainlyvia ISDN; 18% of primary schools and 78% of second level schools now have computer networks in place, an increase of 14% and 28%, respectively; 15% of primary schools and 46% of second level schools have websites, up from 3% and 22% respectively, and approximately 50,000 IT training places have been provided and 75% of all teachers have attended an ICT course since early 1998.
I have secured a further £85 million – 107.92 million – for a new three year programme of ICT in schools, the details of which I expect to announce shortly. The first £21 million – 26.6 million – of this allocation will be released to schools before the end of this year. Current expenditure has also continued during 2001 on each of the major initiatives created under schools IT 2000, that is, teaching skills, Scoilnet, schools integration project and software development and evaluation, which are administered on behalf of my Department by the national centre for technology in education.
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