Opinion|Reader’s opinion
Primary schools are unable to provide a tablet or laptop for every student.
Teacher Risto Suutarinen (HS Opinion 30 January) amazed the loose attitude of parents and schools towards children’s smartphones. The schools ‘practices are the result of the National Board of Education’s digital guidelines and the Chancellor of Justice’s interpretation of the Constitution in 2014 in connection with the use of students’ own IT equipment in basic education. The attitude of schools is also explained by the fact that students’ own smartphones facilitate the work of teachers and save on teaching money.
In the basic education curriculum (OPS 2014), digitalisation is included in all subjects, which is why digital equipment is needed in lessons in all subjects except physical education. However, equipment is expensive, and with much cut in education funding in the 2010s, primary schools, especially elementary schools, will not be able to provide a tablet or laptop for every student. It is much easier for a teacher to do simple digital assignments on students ’smartphones than to book and transport shared school equipment to their class.
According to the Finnish Constitution, all equipment, tools and materials used in basic education must be free for students. I made a complaint to the Chancellor of Justice about the equipment guidelines of the National Board of Education in 2014. According to the decision of the Chancellor of Justice, students can use their own equipment in the school, if the matter has been agreed with the parents.
Virtually all parents give permission to use their own smartphone at school, as the prevailing perception is that the school needs its own phone and does not want its own child to deviate from the crowd. It is therefore important for the National Board of Education to draw up guidelines for the digitalisation of the future curriculum, taking into account the overall well-being of pupils and the equipment resources of schools.
Tiina Halttunen
class teacher in Helsinki
Bay
Reader opinions are speeches written by HS readers, selected and delivered by HS’s editorial staff. You can leave a comment or read the principles of writing at www.hs.fi/kirjtamielipidekirjoitus/.
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