Pupils sell free school laptops

REGION SPENDS €15.8MILLION A YEAR TO GIVE EACH CHILD A COMPUTER - AND INVESTIGATES CLAIMS SOME HAVE BEEN SOLD PUPILS have been selling the free laptop computers that Languedoc-Roussillon

region supplied to help their studies - but could face action, the region president has said. Last year the region decided to spend €15.8million a year on a three-year scheme to buy nearly

32,000 laptops for pupils going into _seconde_, the first year of _lycée_, in a move to make sure all pupils had access to computers. However, adverts online had seen the €500 laptops

offered for €260 and one pupil seller told _Le Figaro_ that the laptops had been bought and handed out "without asking our advice, without any explanation; as if we were being served

chips in the canteen". The girl added that teachers "never asked us to work on our laptops" so she thought she might as well sell it. Region president Christian Bourquin told

_Midi Libre_ the Dell laptops did not become the pupils' property, so should not be sold. He said they had been aware of some pupils putting the laptops up for sale as they had their

own computers and in most cases had managed to get the adverts withdrawn. One advert today on a popular online sales site offers a Dell Vostri laptop with the region's LoRdi logo for

just €170 as "the battery does not hold charge and I do not understand much about computers". Mr Bourquin said in a statement they were investigating any sales and "did not

rule out prosecutions".