A laptop donation programme credited with boosting student engagement and attendance is urging more businesses and government departments to get involved.
Quadrent's Green Lease initiative, run by the leasing firm Quadrent, has already delivered thousands of repurposed work devices to schools across the North Island since its launch.
The company said with further backing, thousands more students could benefit from access to reliable digital learning tools.
Most recently, a partnership between Quadrent and Spark has helped to bridge the digital divide in Wellington, with four local schools receiving dozens of laptops.
Mana College in Porirua is one of the schools to recently receive support, opening the school year with a brand-new computer lab.
Principal Jeff Chapman told 1News it is a major development for a community where many families cannot afford a device.
"This school is based in an area with a high equity index, or in the old terms a low decile, so there are families out there where there isn’t a lot of cash," he said.
The programme works by taking leased work laptops that are being replaced by businesses and donating them to students in need.
Quadrent has also purchased more than 3000 devices from Spark, reselling them and using the proceeds to buy over 800 new Chromebooks.
Quadrent's Amit Jamnadas said the model ensures students can keep up with technology over time.
"There's a constant replacement model every few years, so kids that have got a device, say in year one, have that device replaced a couple of years down the line," he said.
At Tangaroa College in South Auckland, teacher Rob Downie said the impact in the classroom has been significant.
He said attendance in his class increased from 65% to 85% after students received laptops.
The number of students receiving a Not Achieved grade also dropped from 24% to zero.
Downie said the devices have helped students complete work at times that better reflect their home responsibilities.
"We were getting a lot of submissions around the 4am, 5am mark, not because they were staying up all night, but usually because they were getting back from factory work and it was then that they got access to the laptop that was at home," he said.
Downie is now calling for government departments and more organisations to contribute devices, saying classrooms still face shortages.
"If students in these communities are coming into schools, and we go back to 2022 when we had eight Chromebooks in a bucket being transported around a 22-child classroom, there's just no way there’s enough teaching time to get each student through," he said.
Associate Education Minister David Seymour said he could not tell government departments what contract to go with but supported giving the programme opportunities.
"New Zealand is not a country where a politician can say, 'Just give the contract with taxpayer money to these guys', but I think they should be given every opportunity to get the business," Seymour said.
In a statement, the Ministry of Education did not confirm when its current contract is due to end this year.
However, it said it would undertake a robust market process before any contract concludes, considering key requirements such as value for money and end-of-lease arrangements.
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