Although the lockdown is now over, affected schools say they are not angry because they believe the devices will still be a valuable teaching tool when they arrive.
Ministry of Education chief digital officer Stuart Wakefield said nationally, the ministry had acquired and shipped 19,735 laptops and Chromebooks to pupils as requested by their schools for online distance learning during lockdown.
In addition, schools had provided 16,020 from their own stocks.
‘‘The priority for ministry-sourced computers has been, in order, year 12, year 13, and then year 11 students — and within each of those years, decile 1, decile 2, decile 3 and so on through the rankings.’’
While Queen’s High School (decile 5) had received 14 electronic devices by the end of April, Kaikorai Valley College (also decile 5) principal Rick Geerlofs said he was awaiting his allotment.
‘‘We are a little disappointed that these devices have taken longer than expected to arrive into the hands of students, but we do also understand some of the pressures that the Government has been under in terms of sourcing those devices.’’
He said it was a shame they did not arrive during the lockdown, when there was genuine need for them, but they would still be very useful.
Mr Wakefield said global supply shortages during the pandemic meant not all computers were available at the same time.
‘‘We dispatched, on average, thousands of computers per week beginning in the first half of April.
‘‘To expedite shipment to students’ homes, we co-located a courier depot inside the warehouse where the computers were received, configured, boxed, labelled and dispatched to learners’ homes.’’
The devices were now the property of schools, he said.
Queen’s High School principal Barbara Agnew said now the lockdown was over, their new devices would become part of a collection to be used in daily classroom online education activities.
