If New Zealand’s economic future requires a focus on a digital economy, what are the barriers to that taking off?
No doubt there are a few. One of them is who gets access access to technology.
How many people in New Zealand currently don’t have a computer in their homes? Perhaps more importantly, how many of these people have pre-school or school-aged children?
And how many of the schools that they go to have good connectivity and are likely to be connected to the ultrafast broadband network in the foreseeable future?
Take a child of 5 starting school on 25 October. No computer at home. Limited connectivity at the school. Could be in South Auckland. Could be Palmerston North. Could be Balclutha.
One or two computers per classroom. In 5 years time, aged 10, her school has only just been connected to the ultrafast broadband network.
Because the school has to look for most of the money within its existing operations budget, it’s still grappling with the increased costs to upgrade wiring, hardware and software. There’s still only a few PCs in each classroom.
Her parents have now bought a computer at home but still can’t afford to connect.
Compare that to the 5 year old on the North Shore who’s parents have iPads, iPhones and iMacs. They use a wireless connection at home. Their suburb was a priority to get connected to Ultra Fast Broadband (UFB). As was their daughter’s school, which was in the first wave of connectivity. All the children have devices at school. Their child regularly uses the internet for her homework.
This is the digital divide. It’s already here. It must not get bigger. Labour intends to close it.
Yep, totally agree with the digital divide. It is a very real problem.
You have 2 year olds navigating through interactive apps on touch screen devices in one home/school vs kids encountering a mouse for the first time on an old PC in the corner of the classroom in others.
My partner is teaching in a school in South Auckland where the process of accessing information and learning online is still largely excluded from the curriculum because of a lack of resource.
Digital literacy will be just as important as numeracy.
Clare, I do not think you really understand what the digital divide is.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but it is not about who gets access. You cannot ram computers down people’s throats if, for whatever reason, they do not want a computer or do not want to connect to the Internet. The best any government can do is to ensure equality of opportunity of access – this is what eliminating the digital divide is about. For computers, the CIH and Computer Club programs you mention are great and go a long way to addressing the haves/have-not digital divide. But where does your policy address issues around internet connectivity? Many studies have shown that a lack of a broadband connection is more about the lack of infrastructure than it is about affordability.
Schools will have their fibre connection costs paid for by the government and there is a Min of Education program to upgrade school’s internal wiring infrastructure. If the school is a state school that is. Private schools will have to fund these things themselves. That is an example of the digital divide and I have not yet seen where your policy eliminates that.
You talk about a child starting at a number of schools. South Auckland and Palmerston North are in UFB areas and for those children whose homes are also in the UFB area, they will get the opportunity for a fully funded fibre connection in to their home. If the child lives in a rural area or in Balclutha, they will get the opportunity for a wireless or DSL connection at a cost they will have to fund and at a speed that will be a fraction of what their urban cousins will get over fibre. This too, is an example of the digital divide and again, I have not yet seen where your policy addresses this.
What is Labour going to do about ensuring equal opportunity of access to things digital? For this is what drives the digital divide. You seem to see this digital divide being about affordability and for some it is. But for many more people, the digital divide is about a lack of infrastructure and that mainly affects the 25% of the population living in rural areas.
+1 John.
Clare –
Cost is very rarely a barrier to entry particularly with schools. MinEdu already has significant budgets available in this area loaded towards low decile schools.
As covered in the post above, UFB and RBI have the costs for connecting schools businessed cased as part of the rollout.
So unless this is some sort of policy primer of “Labour promises iPads for all kids if elected” then I’m afraid the post doesn’t have too much validity.
I think we have bigger problems with kids not being able to read, write or perform basic mathematical functions rather than hang-wringing about broadband access.
So Labour’s plan to close the digital divide is…making internet access more expensive in order to funnel more money from the poor to those who already wield disproportionate control over internet access.
…
Oh, this is a serious policy? Do you people actually read this stuff before publishing it, or is this just IRL trolling? I can’t even tell anymore.
Agree with John and Gregor
I have seen the CIH do damage to the learning of children. Families where the parents are out of work have received computers only to have parents playing games all night in a room that is shared with children.
Children either couldn’t sleep due to older siblings or parents playing games on the computer or the children themselves playing games into the night.
Merely foisting computers onto people doesn’t always have the outcomes you’d expect.