November the 5th 2008

Little Johnny late for school broadband.

Three days before an election Johnny come lately Key has finally discovered the importance of IT for our schools.

“In the Budget we committed to investing $200 million dollars over the next 5 years for all schools.This includes 40 million in the Broadband Investment Fund rollout and a further $163 million in redirected baseline spending. “

“We launched Project Probe in 2002 to provide rural schools with broadband connectivity. Over 95 of our schools are able to access broadband as a result. All our secondary schools and 99 per cent of our primary schools have access to the Internet.”

“Digital Strategy 2.0 reinforces the importance of broadband connectivity to our country’s schools. The Strategy wants all schools connected to high speed, affordable reliable broadband within a decade. By 2012 all educational institutions will have access to the high speed National Education Network which will transform the way our children will learn.

“Labour has also enabled New Zealand primary and secondary schools to use their five year property agreements to invest in computers and interactive technology, “said Mr Cunliffe.

“Computer aided learning has a significant potential to revolutionise the classroom and Labour’s education policy has identified the cost of buying upgrading and maintaining information technology as a pressure point for our schools.

“Digital Strategy 1.0 also introduced the Digital Horizon programme to fund IT development in our schools.

“Labour is already building on its record of success in IT and education. National after years of neglect -while condoning Telecom’s monopoly –starved schools of IT infrastructure. Johnny “come lately” Key discovering broadband three days before an election is a laughable failure in the investment for our kids’ future.”

ENDS

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