B.C. school board pulls plug on laptop program

A school board in the B.C. Interior has ended a program that provided a free laptop computer to students.

A budget shortfall was a major factor in the decision to kill the program — the largest of its kind in the province — that would have given all students from Grade 7 to Grade 12 a laptop to use at school and at home, a spokesman for the Central Okanagan School Board said.

However, wear and tear on the machines also played a role.

"I think we may have decided this was the better way to go, anyway," said Moyra Baxter, chair of School District 23. "We did have a lot of damage [to the computers] — I was quite surprised by the amount of damage that had occurred."

Had the plan been fully implemented, about 10,000 laptops would have been distributed to the students, said Jon Rever, director of technology for the district. The school district will continue to maintain 5,000 laptops in classrooms.

While critics complained the laptops were too heavy and too easy to break, they were credited with improving literacy and learning, particularly among boys such as Jerami Kosowan.

"It took me 20 minutes to write a paragraph, because I was always like 'this isn't right' and trying to erase, but with this, my stories are longer … more interesting."

While Kosowan is among those who could not afford a home computer, he's one of the few, the school district said.  

"What we've found is 93 per cent of students in Central Okanagan have access to computers at home, so the need to take the laptop home has changed substantially over the last two or three years," said superintendent Mike Roberts.

"If there's a student that has a need — someone who doesn't have a computer at home — there's still the opportunity to take it home when they need it, so they're not disadvantaged."