Governor Schwarzenegger wants to terminate schoolbooks

June 10 2009

California's governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has said he wants to replace schoolbooks with computers.

Mr Schwarzenegger hopes by introducing more technology into schools he will reduce costs and appeal to internet-savvy kids.

"Textbooks are outdated, in my opinion," he said: "For so many years we've been trying to teach the kids exactly the same way."

One high school teacher cast doubt on the practicality of such an initiative. Kristina Fierro said: "It would be a huge cost to get the materials, but also to train the teachers and to train the students to make sure they know how to use it."

Northumberland county council has already moved towards the type of e-Learning Mr Schwarzenegger is referring to. The council has agreed to spend £1 million and give 40,000 children access to wireless working in school.

"It's the future of education – one device per pupil – and we've already seen real growth in the number of netbooks, laptops and PDAs being used in schools," said Richard Taylor, ICT and eLearning advisor in the children's services directorate.

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