Will wireless networks disappear from schools?
As schools prepare themselves to be tech savvy and more and more schools are putting transmitters in classrooms to give pupils wireless access from laptops to the school computer network and the internet, yet another debate poses a question mark on the use of wireless.
Many parents and some scientists are concerned that low levels of microwave radiation emitted by the transmitters could be harmful, causing loss of concentration, headaches, fatigue, memory and behavioral problems and possibly cancer in the long term.
Although there is no conclusive evidence for this, yet the debate is sure to send a shock through wireless LAN vendors, for whom the education market is a critical growth area. This is the latest in what seems to be a rising number of wireless controversies involving school-age and sometimes younger children, covering not only emissions but also privacy, security and safety, and acceptable use of cell phones, WLANs, and RFID.
Take a look at some of these incidents which show how parents and teachers are getting more and more apprehensive about the hazards of wi-fi.
At the Prebendal School, a prestigious preparatory in Chichester, West Sussex, England, a group of parents lobbied the head teacher, Tim Cannell, to remove the wireless network last month.
At Ysgol Pantycelyn, a high school in Carmarthenshire, Wales, parents aired their concerns to the governors, who agreed to switch off its wireless network.
Stowe School, a Buckinghamshire private boarding school, also removed part of its wireless network after Michael Bevington, a classics teacher for 28 years at the school, said that he had such a violent reaction to the network that he was too ill to teach.