The Hidden Cost of Digital Education: School Device Mandates

Digital resource access reflects and reinforces existing social inequalities, perpetuating a modern digital divide in education. This paper presents the first systematic review of Irish post-primary school policies, websites, and procurement platforms to analyse the institutionalisation of one-to-one digital device mandates. Amid state-driven digital strategies and curricular and assessment reforms that increasingly emphasise classroom-based investigations, coursework, and research tasks requiring access to online resources, our analysis reveals systemic inconsistencies in how schools manage and communicate device procurement. It also highlights the growing influence of the private sector in shaping device provision practices, embedding commercial interests within educational decision-making. These dynamics risk exacerbating existing socio-economic inequalities, as access to essential learning tools becomes increasingly contingent on household purchasing power and uneven institutional capacity. The findings show that localised mandates often require significant family investment in educational hardware. To prevent the further widening of class- and school-based educational divides, this paper argues for a centrally coordinated national policy that addresses structural affordability and promotes equity across the Irish post-primary system.