20/20 ICT in Schools Report

The recently released ICT in Schools Report 2007 has a number of key issues as highlighted by Laurence Zwimpfer in an accompanying media release. They are the continued digital divide - varying quality of broadband access depending on where you live in the country, computers in homes, demand for increased bandwidth, the disposal of old computers, costs of ICT equipment. Positives noted were that 80% of all schools have now participated in the ICTPD cluster programme.

Some interesting results in relation to internet access when compared to the previous 2005 Report.

2005	2007
All schools have internet access.	Nearly all schools have internet access. 99% primary schools.
Broadband - 93% Secondary, 78% Primary	Broadband - 86% Secondary, 84% Primary/Maori Medium

Hmmmm - there are a small number of school now that don't have the internet anymore (maybe they didn't respond in the first survey). Considerably less Secondary Schools have broadband access than they did two years ago....... i wonder if this result is more to do with our increased expectation of what broadband should be - and the speeds we are getting now just don't count as fast anymore!