Clear blue water appears to have re-emerged, at last, between the Tories and Labour on at least one aspect of education policy. With the publication of its own specially commissioned Stevenson report on the state of the nation's school computer resources, the "pioneers of new thinking" and heirs of the White Heat revolution of the Wilson years have committed themselves to ambitious plans to realise the potential of new technology whilst the Conservatives have re-dedicated themselves to a return to distinctly old-fashioned educational values. For the latter-day Gradgrinds, it s a dry prescription of tests, more tests, exams, and a few teacher appraisals too. Not a word appears in their election manifesto on the educational benefits of new technology. It s as though they think there aren t any.

Labour, meanwhile, is steaming on, promising an Email account for every child , free access to the Internet for every school, (small print, rescued charges for making use of the free access), and various initiatives to make teachers more computer literate and techno friendly . The Stevenson report identified two main areas of concern: teachers and software - although the hardware isn't much good either, and as for the pupils... Labour now says it plans to set up a teacher-net allowing quality checked programs to be made available for downloading - cheap. Actually, everything New Labour offers has to be cheap, and what isn't will be made so by using national lottery money. That idea, we may recall, had been mooted by Gillian Shepherd in the party conference season, as a way of financing tomorrow's technology with funds from the day after. However, talk of stolen clothes should be tempered, for she seemed to have in mind a £300 million a year orgy of CD-ROMS and lap-tops for children, whereas it looks like Labour is simply trying to plug some sort of DfE spending black spot, lest it turn into the dreaded spending black hole. Funds supposedly only for additional projects, Labour would use for training teachers, one of the few things that might be expected to be paid for out of normal government expenditures.

In any case, the stampede for what is now being called CT , (Communications technology, all important for the chattering classes?) not IT, is really rather old hat. There is something rather sad about the old new technology, as any teacher with a stock cupboard of BBC micros, or a drawer full of electronics kits can vouch.

Mrs Shepherd is right to wonder what happened to the £1 billion the supposedly frugal Tory administration has spent on it over the last eighteen years. Did it really help to connect all the children to Teletext? Or to train primary school children to manoeuvre all strange sorts of souped-down vehicles using LOGO and control technology ? The government seems to think not, as it has conspicuously given up recommending that as a prescription for either the classroom or society at large. In fact, the only new technology left being pushed by the Tories is the mobile phone and information points, and de-regulated commercial broadcasting.

Dennis Stevenson calls the state of "ICT" ( thereby having the best of both worlds) "primitive and not improving", noting that nearly half the computers in primary schools are over five years old, and that there is still only one per thrifty children. Despite their protestations, Labour, Liberals and Tories alike still seem to be measuring educational innovation by numbers of machines purchased, either covertly using the millennium honey pot, or as with the Liberals, explicitly promising a computer for every ten year old out of their famous penny for the school system tax collection. The politicians efforts with new technology, as the philosopher Santayana might have said, increasingly resemble the behaviour of the fanatic - redoubling of efforts having long ago forgotten the purpose. Just maybe there never was one.

(Martin Cohen is researching into the use of information technology in schools in West Yorkshire and Devon at the University College of St Mark & St John)