The use of tablets in schools is going up sharply but without concrete strategy or assessment of their impact on education, experts say in Friday’s Financieele Dagblad.

Schools often introduce tablets in order to bolster their image and to ensure they are not seen as old-fashioned, the FD quotes various experts as saying.

‘What worries me is that the schools would appear to be panicking,’ psychology professor Han van der Maas told the paper. ‘Many schools are bringing in iPads as a replacement for books. There is nothing wrong with that in itself but I do miss the follow-ups.’

Addiction

VU university neurologist Jelle Jolles says tablets are being brought in too quickly. ‘Things are going the same way as during the 1980s and 1990s,’ he said. Then educational changes were made on the basis of ideology and a ‘gut feeling’.

In particular, Jolles and Van der Maas say not enough is being done to research the side-effects of tablet-based learning, such as gaming addiction.

Kennisnet, a government body which advises schools on IT, estimates more than 100 Dutch schools are currently using tablets but mostly on an experimental basis.