Many schools,conscious of the large up-front cost of digital devices,have adopted “no textbooks” policies,using online texts instead to spare parents the additional financial burden of buying books.
Victorian schools are free to set their own policies on technology in the classroom,with the exception of the new mobile phone ban that will start this week in government schools.
Experts say the demise of the former Rudd government’s Digital Education Revolution initiative,which provided federal funding for nearly a million laptops for high school students,triggered a growing shift towards making parents pay.
Rachel Buchanan,senior lecturer at the University of Newcastle’s School of Education,said the expectation that parents purchase devices was also spreading from secondary level to primary schools.
"It used to be at senior level,but now students as young as years 5 and 6 are participating,"Dr Buchanan said.
Dr Buchanan said the cost to parents of technology in the classroom went beyond the purchase price,and included charging the device and paying for lost or damaged devices.
Neil Selwyn,professor in the faculty of education at Monash University,said the use of technology in class was inevitable,given its ubiquity in society.
“Devices in the classroom now is just a given,” he said. “Everything is run through devices,so students have to have them.”