With some schools dropping traditional text books in favour of ebooks on tablet computers, the end of the back-breaking schoolbag could be nigh but the cost of equipping a child for second level has risen significantly in some cases.
While ebooks have obvious educational advantages over books – they can include video, audio and interactive elements as opposed to just the text and images of traditional books – there is no escaping the cost implications of this development.
Dominican College Sion Hill in Blackrock, Co Dublin, for example, introduced tablet computers for first years in September 2014. It teamed up with digital schoolbag company Wriggle to enable it to transform its teaching and learning environments through the use of mobile devices.
For parents, this effectively meant buying an iPad (although the school said any suitable tablet would do), a protective case, investing in insurance and ongoing tech support, and paying for a “deployment and induction workshop” so students could familiarise themselves with the device and learn the rules applying to its use at school.
According to the school’s website, the cost of this comprehensive package for this year’s incoming first years starts at about €524.88.
This includes €389 for an iPad Air Wi-Fi 16GB device; €56 for ongoing service and support, and for the deployment and induction workshop; €20 for a Targus click-in case; and €4.99 per month for insurance with Gadgetinsurance.com to provide cover for repair costs due to accidental and/or liquid damage.
In addition to this, parents have to pay about €190.53 for digital textbooks which cover the core curriculum and optional subject areas. This brings the total to about €715.41 but a “once-off Wriggle cost” offer brings this down to €707.55.
However, if parents opted for an iPad Air Wi-Fi 32GB device at €430 or an iPad Air 2 Wi-Fi 16GB at €483 – both of which are also offered by the school through Wriggle – the overall cost of the above packages would then rise to €748.55 and €801.55 respectively.
As schools are not obliged to notify the Department of Education if they start adopting iPads/tablets for students, there are no firm figures on how many secondary schools have moved to replace text books with ebooks.
A spokeswoman for the department noted that any decisions by a school to use these devices is one taken by individual boards of management. “The department has no input into cost or payment options but very much recognises the importance of ICT [information and communications technology] overall in the teaching and learning experience,” she said. “However, there is no Government policy to replace text books with tablets in schools as yet.”
According to Wriggle's website, it currently works with more than 100 schools across Ireland to transform classrooms into "21st century learning environments".
The move to tablets, however, does have other non-educational advantages – the process of downloading new school books is pain-free and there’s no need for book covers. Plus, as tablets are light and not bulky, the sight of kids struggling to carry ridiculously heavy school bags may become a thing of the past.
