Free iPods for College Students

Students at South Kent College in Dover in the UK, could benefit from getting one of 250 iPods purchased by the college to help them listen to pod casts of lectures. However, only those with good attendance records who have completed all their assignments will be eligible for the free players.

This will be the first time a higher education establishment in the UK has proposed giving away iPods so that lectures can be pod cast, but this is by no means a new idea as both Georgia College and the State University in Milledgeville in the US have similar schemes that are already up and running – and which have proved very successful.

Though the move has been attacked by the Campaign for Real Education’s Chairman as being a total waste of tax-payers money, the college hopes that the scheme will eventually lead to more students enrolling at the college, which in turn would bring in further funds which will result in not only extra resources being available, but potential higher wages for the teaching staff.

Whilst this idea should be applauded, surely it is not those who regularly attend who will would gain the most from these players, but those who are struggling with their grades and I would have thought that these people ought to have been the prime candidates for the free players.

Undoubtedly, the college may see the attendance rate of those with otherwise poor attendance improve as a result of this scheme, but I cannot help but feel that, on the whole, it is those who are already achieving that will ultimately gain whilst the those who really need the help with find themselves exempt. And, in that sense alone, how could this not be considered to be a two tier system which, ultimately will serve to divide the students into those that have, and those that have not.

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