Emily Chapman Laing
Secondary schools across Casey have been gifted with repurposed laptops as part of the ‘This is IT’ charity initiative, as a way to decrease the number of students without access to laptops as a learning tool.
The South East Local Learning and Employment Network (SELLEN) CEO Andrew Simmons founded the charity in 2018 as a way to equalise education and curb disadvantage, after witnessing a peer of his son’s left behind in school without the expected equipment.
To date, This is IT has given out over 1500 laptops to students who “don’t have access to technology in order to compete with their peers in terms of learning”.
“To date, This Is IT have provided more than 800 laptops to students within the City of Casey, 300, donated by the City of Casey,” Mr Simmons said.
“These have gone to students from 16 Government schools in the City of Casey.
“Each of these schools can provide a multitude of examples of impact, from a re-engagement perspective, as well as a completion and pathways perspective, showing the short and long term impact of this type of giving.”
On Wednesday 19 July, principals from various schools gathered at Hallam Secondary College alongside local MPs and This is IT’s “most loyal” donor City of Casey CEO Glen Patterson to receive their donations.
“Today SELLEN’s This Is IT program handed over its 600th repurposed laptop to students experiencing disengagement or disadvantage living in the City of Casey,” Narre Warren North MP Belinda Wilson said.
“This program is focused on equalising education opportunity and reducing e-waste levels in South-East schools – and what an amazing difference they are making in our local community.
“I thank them for all their hard work and commitment to breaking down barriers to equal education.”
Around 10-15 per cent of students are left without crucial learning tools as most schools require students to provide their own devices.
With almost 40,000 secondary students in the region, this equates to between 4,000 and 6,000 students who do not have their own laptop.
While schools in the region to do offer some laptops for students to borrow, anecdotal reports show there is not enough devices to meet demand, and students often aren’t able to take the computers away from the school premises to complete their homework.
Moreover, students are unable to save their work on shared laptops, as they may be assigned a different computer the following day.
City of Casey CEO Glenn Patterson has supported the program for three years, with plans to expand the number of laptops the council is able to donate each year.
“In this time we have shared over 300 refurbished laptops that are surplus to our needs with disadvantaged students from secondary schools across the region, and most recently a batch of 100 devices were donated,” he said.
“It was moving to meet some of the schools benefiting from the program and to hear about the positive impact it has on student’s learning and wellbeing.”
Principals from Hallam Secondary College, Cranbourne East Secondary College, Gleaneagles Secondary College, Lyndhurst Secondary College and Clyde Secondary College attended, alongside Department of Education Southern Melbourne Area Executive Director, Tip Kennedy.
“There’s not a person that doesn’t understand the importance of technology in being able to break a lot of cycles for kids in education,” said Lyndhurst Secondary College Principal Eloise Haynes.
“When we’re looking at what are the kind of graduates we want to leave our schools after their time in education, there wouldn’t be single person here that wouldn’t say we want tech savvy graduates to not only survive, but thrive.
“The impact is not just in the immediate, but the long term and having access to this to be able to break cycles and further education is absolutely critical, particularly in our area which we know has some of the highest disadvantage in the state.”
Ms Haynes expressed gratitude for the This is IT program, which has assisted many of her school’s indigenous students, students out of home care and refugee students.
Mr Simmons said the effect is clear in the feedback given from recipients of the devices.
“It genuinely felt like Christmas again,” one student wrote in their feedback form.
The student also expressed gratitude for the services they will be able to access with the laptop, including therapy and using the laptop to assist in getting their learners permit.
This is IT’s Laptop Scholarship Initiative not only addresses disadvantage to get students an equal education, the program also helps to tackle e-waste by re-purposing laptops which may otherwise be thrown away.
This is IT offers donations to schools Cranbourne, Narre Warren, Endeavour Hills, Hallam, Hampton Park, Dandenong, Noble Park, Berwick, Lyndhurst and Pakenham.
Donors to the initiative include City of Casey, City of Kingston, NAB, Victorian Aboriginal Child Care Agency, Skillinvest, North, Casey Tech School, Rotary Club of Brighton, Ashfords, Rigby Cooke Lawyers and Macpherson Kelley.
