Sir, - Your Education and Living section for December 2nd carried a full-page advertisement announcing that Telecom Eireann and the Department of Education would co-operate to bring computers into primary school classrooms. I take it therefore that the authority of the Department of Education and Science underpins the statement in this glossy and expensive advertisement that "all of our futures are formed in the classroom and rely upon information shared".
The fact that all the evidence is to the contrary and that our futures are formed in an educative process that reaches far beyond the classroom and consists of a great deal more than information is an indication of the strength of the forces aligned in this deeply cynical exercise to place technological rather than human values at the centre of our education.
It is understandable that Telecom Eireann would wish to see technopoly underpinned by a schooling that equates information with knowledge, but a Department of Education has a greater responsibility and must be made to support the contentions, explicit and implicit, in the IT 2000 initiative with evidence. If the State will not defend and promote an education of young children that has a sound theoretical base then it is, perhaps, time to bring the name-changing to its honest conclusion and have a Department of Science, leaving education to others.
It is time now for a wider debate on these issues. Thus far politicians and businessmen have led the way. It is time for educators, social scientists, computer professionals and others to speak from their own experiences in the interest of our young children. - Yours, etc.,
Pearse O'Shiel,
Cooleenbridge School, Tuamgraney, Co Clare.