Low-decile e-learning project a world leader

The trust provides cheap computers and internet for children such as Calvin Smith in
 low-decile schools in Tamaki/Glen Innes. Photo / Sarah Ivey

A world-first "e-learning" project which is transforming children's lives in some of Auckland's poorest suburbs is looking for partners to expand throughout the country next year.

Children as young as 5 in nine schools in the Tamaki-Glen Innes area are publishing their work on the internet and attracting feedback from around the world - with extraordinary effects on their motivation.

"It's so affirming," says project manager Dorothy Burt.

Two-thirds of the students are from Pasifika families where often the main language at home is not English. Another quarter are Maori.

They start school two years behind the national average but at Pt England School, the first to use the new technology, they now catch up with the average in reading and maths by Year 5.

Pat Snedden, the chairman of the Manaiakalani trust that manages the project, says it is attracting worldwide attention.

"People from Google say no one in the world is using our tools like you are," he says.

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