Are the Swiss up to the IT challenge?

Children enjoy learning by doing Keystone

Switzerland is in danger of falling behind other western countries in using computer technologies in schools.

Cuts to funding and a decentralised education system could slow efforts to get teachers and students online.

The Swiss government in cooperation with the cantons and private sector launched an initiative five years ago to promote the use of IT, multimedia and the internet for educational purposes.

The national programme, “Public-private partnership – School on the Net” (PPP-son) was designed to make up for the lack of resources and expertise at schools by offering state-of-the-art learning methods and new technologies.

But the PPP-son could fall short of its target. The government slashed the credit from SFr100 million ($85 million) to SFr35 million in 2003.

Paolo Barblan of Forum Helveticum, a platform to discuss social, political and cultural developments in the country, said that the government’s budget cuts had affected the project but would not jeopardise it.

“The project is not at risk of being stopped because the government provides only a small part of the funding,” Barblan told swissinfo.

According to Barblan, the government is currently subsidising 42 cantonal ICT teacher-training programmes and has spent more than SFr33 million since 2003.

Private sector

Private sector companies support PPP-son by providing the infrastructure and donating hardware and software. Since 2003 they have spent more than SFr35 million on the initiative.

But even though the federal programme was designed to adapt to the varying needs of the cantons, the decentralised Swiss system could prove to be a hurdle too large to overcome.

“Each canton has a different policy, and in Solothurn it’s worse since every community is responsible for its own guidelines and curriculum,” said Dieter Fischlin, a secondary school teacher in canton Solothurn.

“The canton doesn’t want to get involved since it doesn’t want to provide any funding,” he added.

Computer ABCs

According to Barblan, much more has been achieved at the structural level than at the educational level.

He said that while schools were getting hooked up to the internet and computers were available in the classroom, “very little has been done with regard to educational materials – and equally important – teacher training”.

He says teachers need to rethink how best to employ the new technologies to make the lessons more efficient and more interesting.

“We are currently training teachers and their instructors so that they will be able to teach and employ ICT in the classroom,” he said.

“ICT is a means to an end and not an end in itself.”

swissinfo

Key facts

The country’s leading telecommunications company, Swisscom, aims to connect all Swiss schools to the internet by the end of 2006.
Private sector companies involved in the project are:
Apple, Cisco, IMB, Dell, Microsoft, Sun

In brief

In 2000 the Federal Office for Professional Education and Technology launched the initiative “Public Private Partnership – Schools in the net (PPP-son)”.

It is a joint project of the government, the cantons and the private sector that aims to promote information and communications technologies (ICT), multimedia and the internet in schools.

The government focuses on teacher training courses and further education in ICT, while the private sector provides the infrastructure.