High-speed internet not affordable, say rural schools

A government project to get high-speed internet technology into rural schools has hit a snag after some schools were unable to pay the high cost of using it.

Putere School, south of Wairoa, was given a satellite dish as part of project Probe, a joint venture by the Education and Economic Development ministries.

It aimed to provide rural schools with broadband coverage to help with their information technology programmes.

However, getting a satellite dish proved to be of little use to Putere School. With only 19 pupils and a total operations budget of $50,000 a year, the $1200 cost of broadband was far too high.

Principal Rebecca Stevens said the school had to pay for power, phone, a secretary, caretaker, auditing and increasingly numerous compliance costs, such as $20 monthly testing of the school's drinking water, "let alone teacher aids or new computers".

The school's internet connection was "slow and painful", so broadband would be a high priority if it were affordable, "but at this stage we need to spend the money on other things".

Ms Stevens said she had been told that most of the 60 schools given satellite dishes under Probe would be in the same predicament and few, if any, would use them.

The project was a good idea in principle, but too expensive, Ms Stevens said.

School grants had gone up in line with inflation, but not in line with increased compliance costs, which were taking money from other things, she said.

Some schools had stopped giving children swimming lessons because new demands for frequent water testing had made it too expensive to run school pools.

- NZPA