Council spends £700,000 on smartphones for children in its schools because 'banning them would be futile'
- Council not only wants to lift phone ban, but buy smartphones for pupils
- Plans will cost an estimated £30,000 per secondary school in the area
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A council's plans to spend £700,000 of its budget giving every pupil a smartphone has been heavily criticised for wasting money today.
The phones, costing around £150 each, will reportedly be available for every schoolchild in Aberdeen who does not already have one, so that they all have wifi access at school.
The scheme will cost an estimated £30,000 per secondary school and £10,000 per primary school.
Resistance is futile: Aberdeen City Council have decide to fund its pupils' smartphones rather than ban them
At the moment, the 24,000 pupils in the city's schools are banned from using their mobiles in class but the initiative is expected before the start of the next school year.
Jennifer Stewart, the council's Lib-Dem education spokesman, argued that the money would be better spent on essential resources for schools.
She said: '£700,000 is a huge amount of money considering we've got basic bread and butter issues that need to be resolved.
'Other schools have poor toilet facilities, another is excellent in terms of performance but the buildings aren't great and things are falling apart and walls need painting.
'There's always a place for technology, but I think it would make sense to address these other issues first.'
'Digital divide': The head of education in Aberdeen wants to buy all
pupils smartphones so that none of them is left out from internet use
pupils smartphones so that none of them is left out from internet use
Big spending: Aberdeen City Council is using a big chunk of its education
budget on internet access at school, but assured it would be supervised
budget on internet access at school, but assured it would be supervised
Aberdeen schools head David Leng defended the scheme, saying: 'We don't want to get into a situation where we are trying to ban things that you just can't ban anyway, and not harnessing the powerful possibilities of the smartphones.'
He added: 'There have been some concerns in the past that when we do these things we are creating a digital divide between those who have and those who don't. We will ensure that everyone has access to devices and they will always be supervised.
'Nobody will be accessing the internet in a classroom without supervision and when they do it in the playground, they will be going through the school's WiFi, which is filtered.
'Part of the conversations we are having is about mitigating the risk so we will make sure that the safety procedures are in place.'
Barney Crockett, leader of Aberdeen City Council, insisted that the budget will be going on upgrading internet access across Aberdeen's schools and not on buying smartphones.
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