Granada education programme explores the ramifications of the computing revolution.

Teachers, parents, and schoolchildren express their hopes and fears as computers rapidly populate their schools and homes. Chalkface was a magazine programme covering education issues made by Granada Television. Hosted by Judy Finnegan, it aired across the ITV network in the early 1980s. In this edition, Bob Greaves reports from Cambridgeshire classrooms reacting to news that the government will offer a microprocessor to every primary school.

Filmed segments from the classrooms show students ably using and even programming Commodore PETs and BBC Micros hooked up to bulky CRT TVs. Greaves admits to finding the fast progress bewildering, posing questions about the technology-generation gap between parents and children and the 'danger of primary teachers becoming redundant.'

Yet the kids themselves are unphased by the computer revolution and optimistic about the opportunities afforded by a tech-literate education. One child charmingly explains how he's programmed a recipe database for his mum, lending weight to Greaves's assertion that this is 'the first generation of schoolchildren who will grow up entirely at ease with the computerised world.'

Judy Finnigan looks at the implications of the Government's plans to
give a computer to every primary school in the country.