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Brown's free computers

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anotheoldgit | 15:24 Tue 12th Jan 2010 | News
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http://news.bbc.co.uk...education/8449485.stm

Is it wise to spend £300m on this scheme, when the country is almost bankrupt?

/// Families who would qualify for the full package would be those on incomes of less than £15,500 or on benefits such as Income Support or Job Seekers' Allowance.///

I may be generalising but aren't some of these families, those who already have the latest large wide-screen Televisions along with the latest games machines?
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So let me get this right. I workd all day and can barely afford a laptop but if I stay at home like a lazy sod, I get one for free?

Sounds about right for this country.
AOG generalising ???

Who would have believed it!
I may be generalising but aren't some of these families, those who already have the latest large wide-screen Televisions along with the latest games machines?

Yes thats a very large generalisation.

Maybe if we can get more kids off the streets and back into their rooms hopefully doing something constructive our economy may pick up slightly?


Is it wise to spend £300m on this scheme, when the country is almost bankrupt?
Probably not, but we'll have to wait in anticipation and see.
I can see benefits of giving children access to the Internet, but I do sometimes wonder if those who can show a low income don't end up getting more, paid for by 'the rest', that much of 'the rest' can not afford for themselves.

Seems to me that if the schools taught as they should all children would get sufficient Internet experience anyway without free/subsidised laptops/broadband.

I'm not massively against the scheme, but as you say, in these times of proposed cutbacks, there are probably better areas to spend our public funds on.
Or looked at another way - If I'm a child struggling in a familly where nobody is working or gives a T0ss about me, I'd get a chance to get on line and access the free revision sites, past papers.

I'd be able to look things up get and submit my homework by e-mail .

In short I'd get the same chances that kids from richer backrounds have?
Exactly what Im saying jake.
Why can't they use the ones in the school or
in the libraries ....
Free revision sites? Surely ye jest. They will be watching youtube, playing games and catching up on MSN and facebook. Anyone who believes otherwise is sorely misguided.
I'm with Jake on this.

Why should a child not have the chances to learn with the essential tools needed for todays education (a laptop) just because their parents are on benefits. It's not the childs fault.

To be honest my biggest concern would be some of the more uncaring parents seeing their childs nice new laptop and thinking "that's £300 if I sell it". I would hope that some way of stopping this happening has been thought of.
As for the £300 million - quite small compared to the £11 billion paid in child benefit to famillies with no means testing at all.

What say we drop Child benefit for those earning over say £50K a year to pay for it
Sure. Lets's punish those who earn to support those who won't get off their backsides.
The scheme should be scrapped and the £300 million spent on providing better residences for our returning heroes in the armed forces.

Was this the correct answer for you, AOG?
another labour half brained half arsed idea, what a surprise.
Oh well, at least computer game sales will go up because of it.
And I will have more choice of computers for sale on Ebay !
This amount is tiny compared to the 108Billion we spend on benefits, now that's where huge savings could be made. Why do we always focus on the irrelevant leaving the massive "elephant in the room" to cr&p all over us? - Sorry for the mgmt bull!
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It would seem that these computers are to be used for setting homework, taking another load of work off our already 'Overworked Teachers', whatever happened to the text book/exercise book method?

If these computers are indeed needed, why lap-tops, or why new ones?

Most large companies change their computers every 3 years, the perfectly good used ones, either end up in skips or are collected by charities and shipped to Africa.
end up in skips? that makes me want to cry !
Send them to me, I'll sort them out and Ebay them, give them a new lease of life !
did anyone else notice old_geezer!.......please tell me R1 and AOG haven't spliced genes to create the ultimate right wing monster!!!!!
As they are only being trialled in 2 areas. You assume if successful would be available nationwide. A rough calculation 10 million homes x £300 = £3bn
I don't know many companies that still change machines every 3 years - most of mine here are 5 or more before they go some older.

The hard disks are almost always destroyed for data security.

When you add the cost of collection, refurbishing, testing to make sure that they are safe and still functional the savings you'd make are very small. Especially when their speed of operation will be quite slow.

Incidently - all this stuff about "they'll just use it for facebook" is a lot of rot too.

Things like facebook are an important 21century skill - networking with peers, learning how to collaborate and share information and ideas is just as important as leaning who won the battle of Hastings - and a damn sight more usefull.

Geezers comment about the defecit is a complete red herring. Addressing this will not come from scratching together some savings found behind the sofa.

You cannot save your way out of large scale debt - you have to earn your way out of it!

The debt can only be addressed by having as many people in employment as possible - this is exactly what projects like this are working towards
hate to shock a few of you but this kind of thing has been going on for a few years.
you lot must live in the posh areas. someone i know, her lad was given one over 12 months ago by tameside council. all he does with it is play games on it every night.
6 years ago part of Manchester near me had a scheme to get people on line.

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