Over €1.1m was spent by Athlone Institute of Technology in efforts to transition to online learning last year due to the Covid pandemic.
Figures released to Shannonside FM show that over €450,000 was spent on providing Wifi access across the college.
The Covid pandemic resulted in significant changes, and associated costs for colleges across the country last year as students were advised to stay at home and lectures, tutorials, and assessments moved online.
According to documents obtained under Freedom of information from Athlone Institute of Technology, campus wide WIFI was installed to enable online teaching at a cost of €432,093.
The college also spent over three-hundred-and fifty-thousand-euro on tablets and laptops for staff and some students, €353, 670 as well as headsets, webcams, speakers and microphones came to a total of €98,438.
The move to learning via video conferencing apps such as Microsoft Teams and Zoom resulted in licencing costs of €58,035.
Significant money was also spent on the prevention of the spread of Covid at the college with a total of €115,051 spent on products such as sanitizers, wipes, masks, cleaning materials and the provision of sanitising stations
Over forty thousand euro €44,739 was also spent on signage and barriers and the provision of screen and office dividers also costing a total of just over €181,785.
Overall the I.T spent €1.5 million on Covid-related measures including the return to learning, the transition to online learning, postage as well as pay costs in 2020.
