Tablets are stolen from school students - unnecessarily

Two thieves were arrested on Thursday when they stole tablets and computers from Lärkeskolan's premises in Nora.

The tablets were to be distributed to students before the start of school, and this made the municipality's IT manager, Jörgen Bergström, feel compelled to give out information to those who steal tablets.

- It's totally pointless to steal them. We have a system with a function that when tablets are stolen no one can use them and therefore it is not possible to sell them either.

Since all schoolchildren from grade four in Nora received tablets last year, about twenty have been stolen. The problem of stealing tablets is not unknown in other municipalities, in Örebro almost 40 pieces have been stolen since 2016.

Jörgen Bergström returns to the fact that it is pointless to steal tablets, it is even that the thieves reveal themselves in connection with the crime.

- If you try to use the tablet and connect to wifi, we see the IP address. We leave it to the police when we make a police report, he says.

The cost of the stolen tablets, or the digital teaching materials that you can also call them, varies depending on the insurance that a municipality has.

Nora Municipality has a deductible of SEK 400, while that sum in Örebro is SEK 1,000.

- We have a fairly low deductible and this is the municipality's responsibility. This also applies if it is lost or broken. As a municipality, we must not demand payment from either students or parents, because schooling must be free of charge, says Jörgen Bergström.