The adoption by and distribution of free tablets to students was one of the main promises that both major political parties made during the last election campaign to impress the electorate they were technology savvy and could, therefore, deliver a better quality of life for all.

Now, a report by the respected Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) says that “Limited use of computers at school may be better than no us at all but levels of computer use above the current average are associated with significantly poorer results”.

A pilot project in Malta seems to indicate that the success of the introduction of tablets in the classroom is achieving more success. Twenty-two teachers who took part in a project testing the rollout of tablets at schools reported positive or very positive experience. Yet, teachers felt they need to have more control on what their students are doing with their computers.

Students were somewhat less optimistic about the results of the increased technology in the classroom. Only 14 per cent of them said that “a tablet reduced the amount of writing” and just 11 per cent used it to check information online. These findings seem to corroborate the results of the OECD report.

So what is the right way of introducing tablets in schools? Are computers in schools the silver bullet that will resolve our low educational achievement levels or just another expensive toy that politicians are prepared to donate to curry favour with the electorate?

Like every paradigm change aimed to revolutionise the way we work and improve productivity, the introduction of computers in the classroom will continue to elicit controversy among educators, students and parents.

The computer industry will do all it can to convince school leaders and politicians that investment in more hardware and software is a no-brainer solution to improve educational levels.Educators may have a different perspective believing that there is a right and wrong way to promote the use of computers in schools.

The first advice that most educators give to their bosses is that schools must take their time before spending millions of euros to give a tablet to every student. In many schools in the US, the introduction of tablets was preceded by a planning process that spanned three or more years. This rather long planning time is needed to enable schools to obtain enough knowledge about creating a culture of respect and appropriate use of computers in schools.

Schools must take time to train the teachers. For most teachers, having these type of devices in their classrooms is totally foreign. Teachers need to be given tablets years before these are handed over to students. They also need to be offered intensive training in their school time to become familiar with the technology.

Only in this way can tablets become efficient teaching tools.

Traditional ways of learning should not be scrapped because somebody may consider them old-fashioned. Still, research is showing that the more time children spend looking at the screens of their tablets, the less likely they are to improve their reading and communication skills. A study by Cambridge University suggests that “teenagers who spend an hour a day on screens during their spare time dropped the equivalent of two GCSE grades”. As children grow older, they lose interest in reading books. This does not help educational achievement.

The best way to use computers in schools is, therefore, moderately. We are still at a time in the tablets pilot project to tweak it.