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19 Dec 2006
The British Education and Communications Agency (Becta), tasked by the government with organising IT in schools, has dismissed an independent report claiming that over £200m of government funds have been wasted under its watch.
The report by Sirius, an open source consultant, accuses Becta of not properly monitoring e-Learning Credits (eLCs), funds available to schools to buy software from an approved list of titles and suppliers.
Of the £300m allocated through eLCs to date, Sirius estimates that two-thirds cannot be accounted for.
Lack of transparency and lax overseeing by Becta has meant that ICT provision is in the hands of a small number of large suppliers, the report concludes.
"Becta appears to operate a closed shop of ICT vendors which is limiting innovation in schools," said John Spencer, an author of the report and head of education at Sirius.
Becta officials have strongly denied the accusations and, at the time of posting this article, were in the process of drafting a full response to the Sirius report.
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Cracks in the system...
ICT in schools is deplorable, and before anyone seeks to batter that view down I should point out that having worked in industry I am now working in a secondary school which by all accounts is reasonably well off. The trouble is that they have in the past been given consistently bad advice and sold solutions that were simplistic to manage but had huge overheads - it would actually have been cheaper to high a profesional to run the systems then pay for the second rate management systems that are in place. Support is a mixed bag, with some areas being exceptionally good and other areas being beyond a joke - in a school its not acceptable to take 6 weeks to repair a printer! Software is recommeneded and supported not on a best fit basis - but schools are trying to change that. A number of schools are moving away from the education / government / council approach and employing people from industry to put a fresh view on things. IT in schools should be invisible, a supportive background experience that runs seamlessly, not something people expect to fail. Things could be done cheaper, more profesionally and more efectively but like any council / government monopoly, change is very very slow to take hold. The best way to make the changes is from within, if you have what it takes to make a difference then step inside this closed world and help open it up, show people what really can be done and bit by bit the whole system can be revitalised.
Posted by: Mark Darlison 03 Jan 2007
siriusit.co.uk
The correct web address for Sirius is http://www.siriusit.co.uk
Posted by: Anonymous 19 Dec 2006
I agree
In my experience, Schools hove been misguided and misled for many years over ICT. Part of the issue is that Teaching staff generally have not enough time to gain sufficient insight into ICT, the second is that they have been led to use inappropriate software for the tasks required. For Example, the standard training for School Website design has for many years been suggested as MS Publisher. This may be slightly easier for some but the websites it produced were dire. MS Frontpage should have been recommended if any. These days there are even better ways to promote a school on the new through CMS, blog and site management systems, yet still the staff are taught from the dark ages. Another example was that I heard of was that County would only support certain software. Software that was overpriced and not to the children's advantage to learn. This at the time almost smelled of corruption. I too believe in free and open source software, but I also see a place for the proprietary stuff. Whichever BECTA and the County Education Authorities choose, there are masses of areas where masses of money could be saved. If I was given the job, I know I could save them hundreds of thousands just from my own ability!
Posted by: Adrian Rea 19 Dec 2006