Many parents are not happy with much time their children spend looking at screens.
(Girl on iPad. Source: www.pixabay.com)The Department of Education says schools should fully consider the cost implications of introducing iPads into the classroom.
It says it is up to each school to decide if tablets, some costing €500, should replace textbooks.
Some parents of students at Ratoath College in Co. Meath are refusing to buy them for their children because they believe they are spending too much time looking at screens.
Former teacher Nicola Kearns, who is a parent of students at the school, says iPads should not be a permanent fixture in the classroom:
"If the iPad is an important part of the teaching and learning in the school, [let] the school provide the devices. [Let] the school retain those devices in a mobile bank and they are brought into the class and out of the class as appropriate, instead of 30 students in a classroom with this high-cost, high-premium device in their hands."
