School pupils in Glasgow have been told they will be barred from their proms over missing technology, after shocking figures showed that there were over 10,000 iPads missing.
The council-owned tech devices have vanished from classrooms across the city, with sixth year pupils being given an ultimatum to hand them back or face missing out on their milestone end-of-year party nights. Council chiefs have shelled out more 80,000 iPads over the past six years, with pupils from primary six, as well as teachers able to use the tablets to help with teaching and learning.
But a large chunk of the Apple tech has declared unused on the council’s network over the last year. A shock audit report from Glasgow City Council uncovered that some devices hadn’t been returned or were “damaged and beyond economical repair.” A batch of devices were also reported as lost or stolen.
The same report also found that schools were taking a tough crackdown on the missing devices, by blocking guilty S6 pupils from attending their prom. The approach has in those schools has saw an improvement in the number of iPads being returned.
The Scottish Sun reports that Hyndland Secondary School is one of the schools in Glasgow have implemented the tough crackdown.
Hyndland Secondary School is one of the Glasgow schools that has taken the rigorous approach to the problem. Councillors discussed the concerning trend at a recent finance and audit scrutiny committee meeting. Members were also reminded that head teachers at schools were responsible for managing devices.
It was also found that 1,103 devices had not been allocated with a city council tag. This makes them less likely to be returned and “more attractive to being repurposed if found/stolen”.
Council chiefs have appealed for any pupils who have forgotten to hand back their iPads to return them.
A spokeswoman for Glasgow City Council said: “Some pupils may have forgotten to leave their iPads when they finished school and we would appeal to any young person in this situation to return it to their former school as soon as possible.”
SNP Councillor Margaret Morgan added: “I want to refer to the relatively high number of iPads that weren’t returned — leavers not handing them back being the main issue.
“This was at a cost to the council. I was under the impression that this would be the responsibility of the head teacher, and the head teacher managing their budget, to ensure that as many iPads as possible are returned. I wonder if anyone could provide more information on what is being done to resolve this.”
An education official responded: “What some schools do in these situations is not allow students to go to their prom or give them their leavers’ hoodies to try and encourage them to get those iPads back.
“Workers actually used to go out and knock on the doors and get the iPads back. We do everything we can to encourage them and some schools are better than others.
“It is mainly within secondary schools that we have the issue of not getting them back — we don’t see the same issue at primary schools in terms of this.”
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