The school's board of trustees has approved, in principle, a proposal for every year-9 pupil to have a net-book computer for his own use, at school and at home, from the beginning of next year.
The plan is for the college to lease the machines to parents on a rent-to-own basis for about $80 a term over three years.
It would be robust, compact and reasonably priced and it would have a good-sized keyboard with a smaller screen than a full-sized laptop.
Principal Mike Corkery said the days of lugging around heavy ring binders and textbooks in school bags might soon become a discomfort of the past.
But more to the point, it would have an enormous impact on the way teachers taught and the way pupils learnt.
"The day when a personal computer is considered to be an essential learning tool, a requirement even, for every secondary student is surely not far off.
"Information and communications technology (ICT) has had an enormous impact on schooling in recent years and demand for access to all that it can do and provide for teachers and learners grows rapidly - even exponentially.
"Who knows how much this could change the way we teach and learn?""We've got active boards and computers. But we're now at the stage where all pupils need to have laptops to take full advantage of the ICT available."
Mr Corkery said there were advantages in leasing the net-books to pupils. The machines could be checked for misuse, and set up with protocols and rules to manage their use effectively and consistently.
"We'll need a fit-for-purpose infrastructure, too. That will include some fairly extensive expenditure on a new wireless system and other upgrades that will allow us to access ultrafast broadband when it arrives at the gate."
Mr Corkery said the school was part of a Ministry of Education-funded professional development contract this year which was aimed at exploring and using ICT to enhance learning.
"That contract has allowed us to work with, watch and learn from St Hilda's Collegiate, where parents bought MacBook laptops for their girls in year 9 at the start of 2010."
Mr Corkery said ICT provided countless benefits to teachers and learners, enabling everything from access to information and knowledge, the management and manipulation of data, communication and creative endeavour, to recording and film-making (and watching) and assessment and pupil management.
"It is probably true that the information revolution is as significant for society and education as the industrial revolution that preceded it."
