17 Apr 2008
The planned £4.5bn schools IT revamp today faces a barrage of criticism.
The government's Building Schools for the Future (BSF) initiative has provoked a fierce reaction from IT managers who believe they will be dictated to by local education partnerships comprising local authorities and private sector suppliers.
These partnerships mean they will be steered away from open source software and concede control of procurement.
Computing has been inundated with comments from IT managers and technicians worried that the scheme will threaten the quality of IT support in schools and their own career development.
Others fear the scheme will leave students unable to exploit the latest web and social networking-based applications.
Schools are being prevented from enjoying a revolution in software provision, and self-sufficiency is being halted by the promotion of dependency, said Ian Lynch, spokesman for the Open Schools Alliance.
“Innovation starts with teachers and pupils, but under BSF the school’s IT strategy is taken out of its hands,” he said.
“The massive rise in Web 2.0 and social networking tells us that applications are moving to the web and tools are provided free and supported by advertising, not licensing and subscription.
“The further you remove control from users, the more likely you are to entrench the status quo, which many firms that would win BSF-style contracts have an interest in maintaining.”
Young people do not have enough input into the IT they use, which will do nothing for their skills, said Steve Molyneux, an independent IT and e-learning expert.
“The way young people use the web almost conflicts with the functionality of virtual learning environments, which were developed in the mid-1990s,” he said.
Partnerships under the BSF initiative are already being formed across the UK, however, the latest being Newham Council’s £53m deal with IT supplier RM.
See below for examples of school IT managers' angry comments on how BSF is affecting their ability to deliver IT.
Each school that gets 'BSFed' lose their techies to the company running the IT, RM (Rubbish Machines) seems the biggest player. I used to use RM as a supplier many years ago and could not wait to get rid. RMs idea of an IT system looks very good in a sales pitch but does not do what it says on the tin!!
I know a Network Manager who has just swapped from his school employment to RM. His school now pays RM £150,000 for his (and an IT technician) services, last year it cost the school £50,000. He also is expected to manage two schools now with a third in the pipeline. So his school gets less hours but pays 3 times more. Not my idea of improvement.
I could go on?
I would bet a few quid that in time, BSF will fall apart as the costs to run schools increases. The BSF system builds new schools very cheaply now, but over time that money will be recovered (with interest and profit). IMO BSF is just a back door loan system with outsourcing thrown in for good measure.
Mr C.
School based Network Manger
Posted by: Mr C 23 Apr 2008
Already happened in Canadian schools. Windows only allowed. Takes MONTHS to get a new application approved, installed (and perhaps working...if you're lucky). And our students are suffering for it. Dull, repetitive, extremely limited, tasks and software. Computers occasionally down due to virus, misconfiguration, spyware, malware problems, etc., disrupting schools, lessons, admin work, etc. No initiative, no development, no experimenting...the opposite of education. Demand linux now before you are locked in.
Posted by: EM 21 Apr 2008
The reason being nobody apart from the Managed Service will be able or allowed to install or remove software. Maybe they will put on your software that you find you need, eventually after putting in a written request,and if they approve it, for a invoiced charge each time, for each machine
Posted by: Conehead 18 Apr 2008
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