The Ministry of Education in the Northwest Territories is piloting a child development program that will see 1,600 new parents supplied with iPad minis by the government.
These high-tech baby bags come loaded with apps and information on child nutrition, developmental milestones and safety recalls.
This brainchild is the result of feedback from the territory’s new parents, the education minister says.
Today’s new parents don’t want to sit down and read a boring old paper pamphlet on child development — they want an app for that, or so the theory goes.
The obvious benefit to this type of parenting resource is the information on a website or app can be kept up-to-date and relatively easily refreshed right at parents’ fingertips.
But the obvious criticism of the program is it involves $750,000 in public funds for the hardware, which will be given away over three years, starting with 100 this May.
The total cost of the program comes in at over a million dollars, with Chevron Canada closing the gap with a $410,000 contribution.
Critics don’t think corporate sponsorship has a place in the basic responsibility of a government to help parents access responsible child-rearing information, but the ministry insists Chevron’s involvement in the program is strictly financial and they won’t influence what type of content the iPads come loaded with.
Oh, and they get a little logo on the back of the iPads, right next to the territorial government’s logo.
While the how for improving child development is currently the subject of much debate, the why is pretty clear.
A three-year study by the government found 38 per cent of N.W.T. five-year-olds are vulnerable in one area of development compared with a quarter of kids in the rest of Canada.
That number can climb as high as 53 per cent in smaller regions of the N.W.T.
Come kindergarten, more kids in the Northwest Territories are developmentally behind than kids in the country’s provinces, the analysis concludes.
Risk factors for developmental delays include lack of sleep and improper nutrition.
The iPad program is aimed at boosting parents’ resources to ensure the well-being of their kids.
Any parents who’ve had a baby between April 1, 2014 and March 31 of this year — today — can apply for the program. Qualification for the program is not limited by income or area, either.
The more cynical of the program’s critics say it’s nothing more than an attempt to burn the government’s leftover cash before the end of the fiscal year.
Only time will tell whether this iPad program turns out to be a big waste of taxpayers’ money or mini instrument leading to big payoffs for child development.
