While nearly all teachers in both primary and secondary schools use a computer to prepare their own lessons, fewer than 2% of primary pupils and only about 3% of secondary pupils is able to work on a computer daily in the classroom. Teachers rarely use the computer as an aid to teaching during the lesson itself, the study reveals.

Hans De Four, coordinator of KlasCement, a network for teachers, gave an intriguing explanation to De Standaard last week. “In a normal lesson, there are two parties – you and the pupil. If the pupil has a bad day, you’re trained to deal with it. But in a computer lesson there’s a third party – the computer – and a computer can also have a bad day. Sadly, teachers are not trained to cope with that in a classroom situation.”

Some other figures from the study:
• 1.7% of primary school pupils use a computer daily in the classroom
• 35% use one daily at home
• Primary schools in general have one computer for every six pupils
• Half of those computers are more than four years old
• 47% of teachers never let children look up information by themselves

• Nearly half of all 10-year-olds in Flanders already have an online profile, and many have more than one. Two-thirds are on Netlog, 39% are on Facebook (both of which have a minimum age of 13), 26% inhabit the “virtual hotel” Habbo, and nearly 16% are on YouTube.

Everyone aged 10 has access to a TV, 97% to a computer and 96% to the internet, while 87% of those aged 12 to 19 has an account on a social network site like Netlog or Facebook. The figures come from the youth network Graffiti Jeugddienst, in conjunction with Ghent University and the Institute for Broadband Technology.