One thing is certain, not every child gets a free laptop: Flemish government looking for agree on Digisprong

« Everything that has to do with ICT – computers, laptops, iPads – must be at the service of the quality of education. » That is the guideline of the Flemish Minister for Education Zuhal Demir (N-VA) in the file of the Digisprong 2.0, the budget of 400 million euros that Vlaanderen is taking off to offer digital teaching materials at school. For weeks she has been trying to get the file beyond the colleagues on the Flemish Council of Ministers, but it is not that simple. She is hopeful that this time it will work.

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In the Flemish Parliament, the minister sings the praise of the system that a school in Rekem challenged. There they work with a ‘laptop car’. « If they have lessons in the fifth grade about the digital or media guide or whatever, then they can reserve that cart. And if the teacher of the sixth grade needs ten or eight hours, then that teacher also reserves that cart. That is a very good system, both for teachers and for the school as for those children. »

Collective solutions

Flemish MP Hannelore Goeman of Coalition partner Vooruit also argues for « collective solutions ». « Don’t hand out more private laptops, make sure that schools remain the owner of those laptops, that parents can derive them, as it used to happen with textbooks. Our question is: just come with clear, verifiable rules that schools can charge for that. »

So it allows it that the final compromise is heading towards.

Giving every student a laptop is not possible anyway. That would cost 560 million euros, a lot more than budgeted anyway. Moreover, the first batch of laptops, in full coronation time, was anything but free. The Court of Audit noted that 70 percent of the parents had to pay a contribution annually, up to 150 euros per child.

Moreover, part of the money may have to flow to Europe. At the first round of the Digisprong, European Relance money was used for the purchase. There was some hurry, from one day to the next, schools had to organize distance education. So all Catholic schools worked with the same supplier. Only Europe now demands that invoices and documents of a correct tender will be on the table. Documents that the schools do not have. Within the Flemish government, they therefore take into account that they will have to spend part of their budget on it.

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It is certain that the money goes to digital tools. Demir had played with the idea to use the money to put down or renovate school buildings. « Sometimes the fungus is even on the walls. That you think: how is that possible that children get lessons here? » She noted in parliament last year. « When I see that we are taking 400 million euros for laptops, then we have to think carefully about it. Sometimes things have to be put into perspective. »

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But that idea encountered too much resistance from the coalition partners. If money goes to infrastructure, it will rather be WiFi networks and such. « The noses are certainly in the right direction, » says Demir.