Should parents be expected to spend $1000 on a device for high school?
Children of some families “just surviving” the cost of living crisis can’t meet a requirement to take their own device to school, community support workers say.
Many of those families were so focused on trying to make ends meet they didn’t even realise they had to provide a device until school was about to start back, according to Nelson social service, Te Korowai Trust.
“They're so busy just trying to get through day-to-day life that something like a device ... is just not even on their radar,“manager Robyn Parkes said.
Parents faced bills of up to $1000 to get a device for high school, with some retailers and schools recommending parents buy the best they can afford.
High schools in the city required or "strongly encouraged" students to take their own device to classes, an approach known as BYOD (bring your own device).
But some families didn’t have any extra money for big ticket items, after paying for basics like food, Parkes said.
“At the moment, we're inundated with referrals and people just knocking on the door asking for help for all sorts of things; the school costs are one of many, many things that they're facing.”
The waiting list for people seeking support was about three times longer than the same time last year at the service, she said. One community organisation that helped struggling families pay back-to-school costs said more families with two working parents now met the organisation’s hardship threshold.
The Fifeshire Foundation said applications for support with a BYOD device were common, but requests sometimes outweighed the donations it relied on to support families in financial hardship or domestic crisis.
That meant the charitable trust couldn’t always pay for the full cost of a device sought for a student, kaiwhakahaere/executive officer Shanine Hermsen said.
Nelson high school Nayland College said it was essential students had access to their own device at school, recommending a Windows laptop.
A cellphone was no longer a suitable device for classroom learning, especially in light of the new government policy banning cellphones at school, acting principal Hannah Banks said.
The school’s general guidance was that for juniors students (in years 9 and 10) a laptop rather than a chromebook was required, she said.
Technical specifications listed on the school website included a minimum of 4GB RAM, but some IT retailers said laptops with at least 8GB – starting at around $800 – would last longer and work faster depending on what the computer was used for.
Customers wanting protection against damage and performance problems for those laptops would pay around $1000 in total, but buyers with contents insurance could check if they were already covered for damage, the retailers said.
Banks said while a basic laptop that had 4GB RAM was likely to be sufficient in years 9 and 10, a laptop with 8GB RAM would run a bit faster, which “could make for a better student user experience”.
Since financial circumstances were different for different families, the school hesitated to give firm guidance on how much parents should spend on a laptop, she said.
But parents who could afford to buy an 8GB laptop “might wish to do that”.
The school had a limited number of reconditioned low-cost devices available to buy through the school, and could also support families to apply for Work and Income loans or grants to help with the cost, Banks said. There were also devices in classrooms for students to borrow during the day if a student didn’t bring one.
Several parents with children about to start high school said they were still working out what to do.
One said they were considering giving their child a refurbished laptop from a hardware reseller store that they already had at home.
With no such reseller store in Nelson, another parent preferred buying new, saying it was easier to return things to a physical shop if there were issues.
The Ministry of Education said students should not be excluded from participating in courses or more general curriculum activity if their whānau was unable to provide their own BYOD.
“At the moment, we’re inundated with referrals and people just knocking on the door asking for help for all sorts of things; the school costs are one of many, many things that they’re facing.”
Robyn Parkes