Education and Technology: Access To Computers at School

Archived Topic Box from the 2005 Fifth Annual Benchmark Report

In today's technologically dependent, knowledge-based marketplace, basic computer skills have increasingly become a necessary part of basic K-12 education. An important step to gaining computer literacy is the ability to access and use computers at school. One method of comparing access to computers across jurisdictions is using the ratio of students per available computer.

Using data from the 2003 OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), Canada is tied for third rank in computer accessibility, with five 15-year-old students per school computer. Ahead of Canada is the top ranked United States, with three students per computer, and five countries – Australia, Hungary, Korea, New Zealand and the United Kingdom – with four 15-year-old students per available computer. Sweden, Norway, Iceland, Finland and Switzerland all rank below Canada, at six students per computer. Turkey places a distant last at 25 students per computer.

Statistics Canada compares provinces looking at the student-to-computer ratio for children in both elementary and secondary schools combined. Interprovincially, BC ranks 7th, right at the Canadian average of 5.0 students per computer. Statistics Canada notes that the ratios are higher for large and/or urban schools, which make up the majority of the schools in BC and Ontario (ranked 9th). Top ranked Manitoba and Saskatchewan (3.6 and 3.7 students per computer, respectively) reflect primarily rural school populations. Out of the schools that were mainly urban, only Alberta ranked above BC, at 4.1 students per computer.

Sources: OECD, Education Policy Analysis 2004, June 2005; Statistics Canada Connectivity and ICT integration in Canadian Elementary and Secondary Schools, June 2004 and Connectivity and Learning in Canada's Schools, September 2004.
Notes: The OECD uses the mean number of students per computer, while the Statistics Canada data represents the median number. The mean is the average, while the median represents the number in the mid-point of a set of data therefore, a median is less sensitive than a mean to extreme figures on either end of the array of data. For Canada, the mean and median were both 5 students per computer.