Every high school student in Australia to get a computer by the end of the year

FRAN FOO, The Australian

EVERY secondary school student in Australia will have a computer by December 31, the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations has confirmed.

With public schools well on their way to meeting the target, Catholic and independent schools are gearing up to deliver the remaining units to students.

As at June 30, Catholic and independent schools had a balance of 19,741 and 32,345 computers to give students, respectively.

The initial target was 163,672 for Catholic schools and 116,044 for independents. Government schools from all states and territories are poised to meet their target of providing more than 500,000 computers to students.

Labor hopes to deliver 786,848 computers to secondary school children.

The five-year, $1.1 billion National Secondary School Computer Fund sits under Labor's Digital Education Revolution umbrella. The program was unveiled by Labor in the lead-up to the 2007 general election.

The fund will provide grants of up to $1 million to eligible schools to help with the provision of new or upgraded ICT equipment for students in years 9 to 12.

"About 786,000 computers in total will be provided," aDEEWR spokesman said.

At this stage the department cannot provide a total final break-down by state or territory or school sector.

Funding for the computers program is provided in the budget forward estimates to 2014-15.

The spokesman said that, as at June 30, 589,879 or 75 per cent of the total number of computers required to reach 1:1 had been installed.

"Installations are occurring in line with agreed implementation plans, and education authorities have repeated their written assurances to Minister for School Education Peter Garrett that they will reach the target," he said.

After the federal program ends it would be up to each education authority to make a decision on the computers, he said.

The NSW government has rolled out the highest number of computers: about 192,000 Lenovo laptops for the students.

The opposition had previously criticised the government's handling of the program, saying Labor would not be able to achieve its 1:1 ratio by the end of the year.

In June the government quietly scrapped the $100m Fibre Connection to Schools initiative established to complement Labor's PCs in schools rollout.

The broadband plan was meant to cover schools outside the $36bn National Broadband Network.