P Is For Pepsi: Schools Turn Blackboards Into Billboards
Posted by Amber Robinson at 12:50 PM on August 11, 2008
It seems there is nowhere left to hide from corporate giants anymore. News in this morning is that Cromer Public school has re-named its humble library The Panasonic Learning Common, complete with distinctive signage and product placement.
Panasonic has been working with the teachers at the school to develop an interactive white board. This will become the company’s flagship model to be marketed throughout schools across the world. In return, the school will receive $100,000 of Panasonic product including a plasma TV, computers, video cameras, DVD players, and an email/fax machine.
Meanwhile, nearby Killara High School P&C is trying to raise $18 million worth of private investment to fund upgrades including a new science and technology building to replace 14 demountable classrooms. Welcome to computer class, brought to you by Microsoft! The kids won’t have a chance.
Do we think it’s acceptable that corporations are allowed to intrude into school grounds? Or is it something that we have to accept if we want our public schools to have any chance of competing with well-equipped private schools? I’d love to know your thoughts.
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I’ve never had a problem with school P&Cs supplementing their income through small sponserships from the community – the local bakery advertising in the newsletter, or the local dentist having a paid banner on the school fence and so on.
But the idea of a sponsership that actually puts the product name into the childrenss mouths is a creepy one. Renaming a school library for a sponsor puts the advertiser into too much of a position of power I think.
There’s also the fact that if the public-private partnership becomes too formalised and accepted – too much a part of how schools are expected to equip themselves, then the government is let off the hook of actually funding government schools properly themselves. And the losers won’t be the kids in schools like Cromer where relatively wealthy middle class kids are an excellent demographic for advertisers like Panasonic. It will be schools in less advantaged areas which already suffer enough through staff turnover, distance, disinterested P&Cs and the like.