Below is the text of a letter sent to a number of local and national newspapers. So far, the Campaign for a Commercial-free Education is aware of it having been printed in five papers (in the Wicklow, Kildare, Tipperary, Galway, and Mayo regions). If you know of it having been printed anywhere else, please leave a comment (and link to the article, if possible). Wicklow Times 02/04/08 Article Alternatively, feel free to print it and sign it and send it to your local newspaper/school/Tesco/community notice board. A slightly more detailed copy of the letter can be found on indymedia.ie.

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Sir –

The recently launched Tesco ‘Computers for Schools’ scheme claims to provide schools with free IT equipment. This is a fallacy. Simple maths will explain: in order for a school to claim a ‘free’ computer that retails at about €700, customers will have to spend €344,000 in Tesco (i.e. 34,400 vouchers at €10 each); in order for a school to claim a ‘free’ battery charger and four batteries (that you could buy for around €10) customers will be asked to add €18,900 to Tesco’s bank account, and so on. (Source: 2008 Tesco Computers for Schools Catalogue, available at tesco.ie)

What a scheme like this actually does is allow an under-funded education system to continue to be under-funded by allowing the government to continue to abdicate its responsibilities in this area. The line seems to be: if Tesco are willing to provide IT equipment, why not let them? The same is true of the currently-running SuperValu ‘Kids in Action’ scheme, which claims to give free sports equipment to schools. Could you imagine the uproar if Tesco et al decided to run a ‘Medical Equipment for Hospitals’ voucher scheme? Or, ‘Better Equipment for the Gardaí’ voucher scheme?

The only free thing that comes out of this scheme is free advertising for the supermarkets. A cursory look at Tesco’s website gives the following advice to teachers to increase the amount of vouchers they collect: ‘Put up posters around school’ (i.e. advertise for us); ‘Send a letter to parents’ (i.e. advertise for us); ‘Design and circulate flyers’ (i.e. advertise for us); ’send a letter to other local businesses’ (i.e. advertise for us); ‘prize for the class who collects the most vouchers’ (i.e. pit students against students).

The Irish National Teachers Organisation has called on its 34,000 members to ‘reject this campaign by sending the vouchers back or by putting them in the recycle bin”. Indeed, this is advice that every right thinking parent ought to consider (whilst also writing to Tesco to let them know that we are not going to allow our education system to be co-opted by private enterprise).

Is mise,

Mark Conroy.