Has anyone thought of the reasons why we must buy computers? If it is for our children than most of us will be very wrong. I'm writing for the majority parents who are from the middle and lower income group.

The fixed cost taken out to buy the PC is not sufficient for running it in order to acquire knowledge. Most of us are also computer illiterate and that makes things worse.

Basically the computer has nothing to offer our children. If parents think buying a PC will protect their children from being left behind in the K-Economy then I must say that they are wrong. K-Economy has nothing to do with a PC that only has a good life span of two years.

Just like our glory in sports has got nothing to do with Bukit Jalil or our that our economic prosperity has anything to do with our KLCC. I plead to all parents to think carefully when using their hard earned EPF money to buy a PC.

Yes, you may use it one day but the timing must be precise because it is very easy to waste our money over the short-lived life span of a PC. If we don't use our PC everyday somehow or rather, then it is pointless to buy one.

Most children will use the computer for playing games and end up only playing games. Pirated games on CD are available nationwide and can be found even in the remote, rural kampungs.

Those who can afford our expensive Internet access will spend most of their time chatting and aimless web surfing. On top of this, teachers don't allow students to submit their homework in the form of printed electronic documents.

This means the use of a computer's basic word processing programme is also ruled out. Of course, there are other areas to be looked at first such as students copying each other's work and plagiarism which now can be done at light speed.

If more tasks need to be done, the computer will require additional installation of software which means Malaysia's software piracy will shoot up and may make our foreign MSC partners unhappy.

Still, installing pirated software will not be of any good because we need the books and manuals to learn how to use them. Such materials are not cheap and not available easily nationwide. Of course, we could resort to photocopying. Again, will our foreign MSC partners, authors and software designers be happy with our increased piracy?

The government must be blamed because without integrating K-economy into our education system our children will be stranded unless they choose to study computer science during their tertiary education.

It is our schools that need computer labs and the K-Economy should be made part of the education syllabus to begin with. A good move would be to have parents contribute towards the setting-up of computer labs in schools first before they decide whether to have a computer unit at home.

The education ministry should also introduce a new computer syllabus to enable our children to make use of these labs. The government must also provide resources like books, manuals, web-site references and e-info on CD.

With these, students will have plenty to do starting from primary school until they reach their tertiary education. They could do assignments, group projects, research drawings, web-page development, programming, multimedia etc. The education ministry should start to work hard on these matters with the MSC gurus.

A proper plan from the government will help prevent parents and children from being drowned in the wide sea of the K-Economy.

Companies should take lead by having small computer labs or kiosks for their staff to use and the government can help by reviewing the phone rates for Internet access which are still high.

Please imagine the cost of the phone bill for Internet access for a family of two adults and a few children for three hours a day. The phone bill for the Internet access alone will not be less than RM162 month.

I hope much thought is given first before we rush into buying a new computer for the family.