Scheme gets £2.5m to deploy latest technology in schools

Vital gets additional funding after two successful years

Vital Professional Development, a programme set up in 2009 to boost teaching in IT and computing, has been given £2.5m by the Department for Education to allow the programme to benefit subjects other than ICT and computing.

The scheme has been running for two years and has more than 7,000 teachers using its resources.

The funding will see other subject teachers provided with their own web portal to help them use IT more effectively.

Vital has a network of regional vital co-ordinators who work with local schools to increase engagement.

Kevin Streater, executive director at The Open University, which runs Vital, believes that teachers and students are lagging behind other public sectors in their use of technology.

"We want to help teachers understand what is going on in the IT industry and incorporate this into their lessons using our resources.

"Currently, if Microsoft releases a new product, it may be four or five years before a language or science teacher is able to use the product in the classroom, and this just isn't good enough," he said.