To extend broadband to more of the country they want schools to open classrooms in the evenings and weekends so the greater community can avail of the broadband the school has:
In the context of leveraging resources, in particular technology for all of our benefit, Dr. Coughlan continued “One way to equip communities with the skill sets needed in the global economy is to extend the schools broadband service to enable all community stakeholders to enjoy the benefits of technology out-of-hours, thereby extending the footprint of broadband services throughout the country in a cost effective manner.â€
Most schools have a satellite dish to provide broadband. It’s got a speed of 512k download. It’s almost useless. In areas where schools have proper broadband people themselves can get it at home. Why open the schools? It’s not as if there is a problem with convincing people to use broadband. The issue is availablity not demand.
Most schools don’t have good computers, the public adding wear and tear will make things worse.
Most schools don’t have the resources to pay someone to come in out of hours to supervise the public.
This would be the same Chambers that I met the EU with who were smug enough to suggest rural dwellers can always move into the cities to get broadband and rural dwellers should have to pay higher line rental because it was unfair on city dwellers to have to subsidise them.
And then the Chambers jumped on the Collison bandwagon:
Citing the example of the Collison brothers from Castletroy, Limerick who recently sold their web based start-up to Canadian company Live Current Media, Dr. Coughlan continued, “It is vital that we invest in communities to ensure that they achieve the very best of their abilities. Young people such as Patrick and John Collison remind us of the talent that there is in Ireland,†Dr. Coughlan concluded.
Utter, utter, utter, stupid nonsense.
I really would appreciate it if people engaged their brain before releasing statements like this…
It’s quite obvious these people haven’t visited a school in years, and only believe what they hear from the educational minister about ‘broadband’ in schools.
Surely a contender for daft idea of the year….
Turning schools into cyber cafes, do you think we could get rid of the Chrisitian Brothers and get in Starbucks. Maybe schools could turn transition year kids into baristas as work experience? 😉
Initially I was inclined to ask: Is the man for real? But of course, that would be a stupid question. The key here is that what he is saying sounds good – the fact that it is daft is neither here nor there. This is not about broadband, it is about getting a wee bit of publicity. No more. No less. Sure the rustic plebs don’t know nathing anaways!!!
As I said in another forum on this – yes the actual suggestion is pish, but the idea is not. Why the f**k is schools bb any different from general bb? because it is funded by the Dept of Ed?? The Chambers idea should be that a proper co-ordinated roll out of bb would see schools participate just like anybody else.
I know that the privileged few in some areas (where, in some cases, there is ‘other’ bb) get access to the schools system after hours, using their own laptops….. Thats not right either…..
Bye, Barry