Letter: Are Vendor-linked Awards the Way to Go for Schools’ ICT?

Published on: 8 Oct, 2025
Updated on: 8 Oct, 2025

From Patrick Bray

In response to: Sandfield Primary School Use of Apple Computers Now Has Distinction Status

I am very supportive of the use of ICT in schools. Not being a teacher I tend to look to my children’s teachers to see how they approach it. Overwhelmingly in primary what I see is it used as an aid to numeracy and literacy, the familiarity with the technology being a secondary benefit.

What I do have concerns about is a company “awarding” accolades for use of their products. I have no doubt that the video and literature is stocked full of good pedagogical basis and offers of support to schools. I also have no doubt this is about trying to get more apple subscriptions in place from parents and in subsequent years students.

I am not in the Apple “club” but would probably feel pressured to be so if for nothing else to provide a common device experience at home were my children’s schools to follow this approach.

Also, we should remind ourselves that Apple is a product that endeavours to hide the technical computer environment from its users and operators; OK for productivity but not so for those who want to look deeper.

We have a mix of Linux and windows based devices at home. I appreciate that schools have limited resources and need a good support package in place – but I wonder if vendor-linked awards is the place to go?

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