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Shepherd Chimururi Youth Interactive Correspondent
Ants, termites, spiders and dust were the only visitors to the computers laboratories during the Covid-19 lockdown yet schools were expected to pay rental fees to computer rental companies.
With pupils stuck at home it meant no school fees income for schools. Like the proverbial thief, the rental companies came and repossessed their computers without the knowledge of pupils.
When schools opened, tech savvy pupils were shell shocked to find their once well-equipped computer labs reduced to shells, throwing back the school back to stone age. That is one of the untold stories of Covid19 pandemic.
Now almost a year later the computer labs are still empty as many schools realised they were taken for a ride. Now they hesitate to rent computers again. Worse still, when the service provided computers repossessed they took away the hard drives that contained pupils’ CALA projects and other ICT assignments.
In an interview with Youth Interactive, a pupil at Dinyane High in Tsholotsho, one of the schools affected by repossession of rented computers who requested to remain anonymous, said that renting school computers was betrayal to pupils.
“Renting computers is a capital technological sin, an unforgivable blunder. Imagine for years we have been bragging to friends that go to neighbouring schools about our state-of-the-art computer lab but we were left with an egg on our faces when we returned to school and saw an empty computer lab.
“It was unbelievable. Pupils were shocked, felt cheated and robbed of our school work. Imagine the school lost also even the e-learning software that was sponsored by a donor. That means no more e-learning for the pupils, no more research on internet. We do not think the donor was happy to hear this. At first we thought the school authorities had sold the computers and at one time we contemplated staging a demonstration, but the school authorities showed us documentation to prove that they were indeed repossessed,” he said.
To the pupil, the act of renting computers is a betrayal to pupils as the cost of renting one computer in one year is almost equivalent to buying a full set computer. Most computer hiring companies charge US$20 per month to make it US$240 per year.
With that money a school can get an even cheaper desktop for less than US$150. Worse still, most schools tie themselves to legally binding long term contracts with some going for 3 years.
When you consider the whole cost of renting and add in the necessary service fees and insurance charges, you will be surprised that the total charge of the rented device is up to three or four times the price of the computer on the market.
Princess Mudya a Form 3 pupil at Pass Rate High School, said learning using rented computers takes the spark off the learning.
“It is like renting a sofa and you return home one day to sit on a stool. I know the feeling from my friend who is at a school that had its computers repossessed during lockdown. For pupils the thought of knowing that one day you can lose your work any day makes them feel insecure because in most cases the school admin will not share information about failure to pay. It is also harder for pupils to exercise maximum care and maintenance when knowing the gadgets are not their own.”
She further added, “I think it is better for schools to bite what they can chew. By this I mean they must buy few machines at a time even if it means four machines per term. Another option is to do rent to buy. That way it is better because you know you will eventually own the gadgets.”
Rein Matambo, an ‘A’ Level student at A Class Academy, appealed to the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education to craft e-learning policies for schools to avoid underhand deals by schools heads.
“Honestly speaking, there is no right thinking school head who can rent a computer as if it’s a capital asset unless if they are also benefitting from the deal. In any case, what is the logic of hurrying to fill up a computer lab with rented computers that you lose at the end of the deal? Such kind of behaviour is retrogressive and only helps the enrich the owners of the computers not schools.
He continued, “With the way technology is shifting you will be stuck with obsolete computers for years. At the end the company keeps its equipment.
A computer equipment rental contract commits the company to a long-term vision. With an average contract term of between three to five years, depending on the clauses, it can prove difficult to change the options mid contract.
Should there be an urgent need to hire computers, it is advisable for school heads to make sure the total cost of the duration they need to hire will not exceed the cost of buying your own computers.
There is also the need to do a thorough research on other clauses and quality of machines and maintenance before signing the contract because it will be difficult to change or renegotiate mid contract.
Online Reporter