Computers cause low education standards

Your front page and editorial (Irish Examiner, April 5) regarding lack of high-speed internet in primary schools was unnecessarily alarmist ie lack of internet in primary schools ‘’could stymie a whole generation’s appetite for learning.’’

This is incorrect; the majority of research studies have found that real learning and creative thinking are achieved via a combination of good teachers, books and pupil interaction — not through computer screens.

It is ironic that in Silicon Valley, home of this “technological wizardry’, the top primary schools have banned computers from the learning process.

They know, as every experienced teacher knows, there is nothing on a primary school curriculum that needs to be taught with the aid of high speed internet.

Unfortunately, the electronics industry is keen to push unproven electronic gadgetry on schools, where they act only as a distraction.

Experienced teachers are despairing at the drop in educational standards, a drop that is mainly due to pupils’ shortened attention spans, shortened by an over-reliance on technology.

The standard of oral and written communications has dropped sharply; independent free thinking and problem solving has been greatly eroded, caused by students not thinking, but ‘clicking’.

John Devlin

Erne Terrace

Dublin 2