School IT quango to be expelled

Privatise Becta?

Becta's chief executive, Stephen Crowne, is quoted as saying:-

"Becta is a very effective organisation with an international reputation, delivering valuable services to schools, colleges and children. Our procurement arrangements save the schools and colleges many times more than Becta costs to run."

Right, so it would be a viable private sector operation, selling its services to schools and colleges. Right? I mean, as Crowne says, their "procurement arrangements save the schools and colleges many times more than Becta costs to run." That means those schools and colleges can pay the entire costs of Becta, plus a bit more (so that Becta's making a profit for its shareholders), and still be saving money. Right?

So, let's privatise Becta, and let it sink or swim in the private sector.

Or would Crowne suddenly find all sorts of reasons why that just wouldn't be viable?

Becta missed their chance

My experience of supplying a couple of schools is that they have the usual MS mess. They didn't seem to be aware of Becta at all and sourced PC's/laptops in the usual way.

We've replaced some PC's which run the crucial interactive whiteboards with Ubuntu PC's and so there is a real way forward to reliable systems. The new IWB software from Promethean has been re-written from the ground up to run on Ubuntu.

The on-site IT bod is now re-using (failed Windows) PC's as LTSP terminals. Teachers have now been getting Ubuntu PC's which match the PC's in their classrooms. Macs are going to be used in the music rooms.

Don't forget - one huge advantage of Ubuntu is that they are all the same - and upgrading to the latest version is trivial. (A client of ours who knows nothing about PC's just upgraded his Ubuntu work PC cause he clicked on the 'upgrade' button when checking for updates).

Also, all the educational software in the repository is free and a piece of cake to install.

The problem with Windows is that it's fragmented. The teacher might find an application they like on their home PC or school laptop. But in the classroom it won't work because; it's Vista, XP SP2 (not 3), wrong Java, infected, wrong version of office, Win 7, or some other unfathomable reason. That's without even mentioning all the licence issues.

On Ubuntu it's - click Software Centre - select app - click install. Do same in school.

Becta could have put together a framework to run schools entirely on OSS - some Windows running in VM's to show children for (PC history lessons) testing etc.

Not difficult - server running Samba, Postfix would even allow odds and sods MS laptops brought in to access files/emails.

They could then have saved the billions sent to MS for (cheap) licenses - and this money could have been further invested into the schools systems.

But the main advantage would have been this - we'd have had IT students coming out who knew something about IT. All we're seeing is youngsters who know how to use (MS) spreadsheets. And possibly some other things about MS networking. Considering the internet runs on Unix they are effectively useless for business.

Me - How can I help?

ICT student - Can I have a work placement?

Me - Do you know anything about LInux - the vast proportion of websites and email systems run on Linux, LAMP etc Anything about PHP, Python, etc

ICT student - No, we've done some things on spreadsheets and stuff.

Me - Have you done anything not on Microsoft.

ICT student - Umm - not sure - what else is there?

Me - Might be an idea to go to Uni first and find out about IT - thanks for your call.

IT teachers...

...actually most schools would prefer that their IT teachers, err... teach IT, rather than being repair technicians or corporate sourcing folks. I’ve got no axe to grind in favour of BECTA, but the right answer isn’t to push the problem all the way out to the chalkface. You can see by the argument above about Open Office, Ubuntu whiteboards etc that it’s not an area where the answers are simple. I’m sure big colleges with large IT departments will be able to swim with their heads high above water, but what about a smallish primary school with 90 laptops, 9 interactive whiteboards and one teacher with responsibility for IT who if she’s lucky gets one half of her time to do everything to do with IT, including creating supporting materials for lessons, teaching other teachers, maintaining the school website and everything else... she’s not got a whole lot of time to decide to port the whole set-up over to Linux, now, has she?

So by all means can BECTA, but makes sure there’s some other kind of support network to help all the other “one-woman bands” who will otherwise be left on their own all over the country...

Customer should pay

If Becta has saved its costs then schools should subscribe as members.

It would be best run by a board, or perhaps a trust, representing members.

If enrolment were to be near total that would be less than 5 grand per school to provide the present funding. But there would come benefits of economy because schools are in the habit of parsimony, so big salaries, long expensive lunches on exes, and all the inevitable waste of government funded jobs gets ditched. Probably 2 grand per school, or £ 5 per pupil would cover it.

All these complaints about which Office Software to use

in IT classes. So do physics departments argue over which knitting patterns to use?

Teaching office skills is all well and good - but in IT classes?

Its no wonder kids coming out of college think debugging involves staring long and hard at the screen and praying. A 2.1 in looking thing up in MSN is really helpful when the coffee machines knackered.

@Tom 7

"Its no wonder kids coming out of college think debugging involves staring long and hard at the screen and praying."

Doesn't it? Damn, that's what I've been doing wrong all these years!

On a wider note, back when my mum started teaching (in about '95) my younger brother and I were her main source of technical assistance and advice. However, as she was the only one at her first school with any knowledge of what a computer looked like she was asked to run the schools I.T. budget.

From that experience, there is definitely room for SOME sort of advisory service to help ensure that these schools do not get ripped off for their I.T. requirements. You have to bear in mind that there's a massive difference between a Secondary/High school with a dedicated I.T. department and staff, and a Primary school with a middle-aged non-techy woman running the budget. While I agree that BECTA may have proved more of a hinderance to larger schools I do think that these smaller schools still need guidance.

As for the arguments of whether Windows/Linux/Mac are most appropriate, I think there should be room for all of them within I.T. qualifications at schools, to ensure a broad knowledge. They could spend roughly equal amounts of money buying each type and get 50 Linux PC's, 20 Windows PC's and a Mac.

Becat home access package

Is there where "poor" children are given free laptops and internet access at home, because it's "unfair" that their parent(s) cannot afford such things and otherwise they would have to go to the library?

Too little too late

The problem BECTA has had is that it has only in recent years grown any teeth, or indeed known what it is it was supposed to be doing. In many areas it still cannot tell schools what to do, merely recommend. Over the years it has created a huge bank of resources that are in fact useful to schools, including advice on child protection, procurement, subject specific data and many other delicate areas that schools required guidance on. Then hid them all in a website that was un-navagable and next to useless when it came to actually extracting relevant information from. It also made the mistake of being very teacher-centric when the vast majority of IT decisions in schools are now made by the on-site network managers and technicians, some of who are now (thankfully) reaching positions in the school senior leadership teams where they can prevent teachers making daft policy and spending decisions. It is only very recently BECTA has begun to deliver the goods after spending years flapping around in waht appeared to be a rudderless fashion. There was a lace for BECTA, it is a great shame that they never found out what it was until it was far too late.

As with the Labour govts National Grid for Learning (NGfL) initiative which saw a huge boost in the levels of IT spending and infrastructure in schools, it fell down on the curriculum where the resources where wasted on simply teaching Microsoft Office skills, instead of preparing children in programming, networking and all of the really useful real world IT skills the country required to make it the IT powerhouse Labour intended. Well that and the fact that the vast bulk of IT teachers cannot teach any other skills apart from Office. IT in education needs a huge rethink to utilise the equipment the schools currently have and give our children the skills and interest levels required to steer them into a vast subject and career area where currently they are left with limited and boring lessons and teaching staff who do not have the skills to teach beyond the use of basic applications.

Two points

1.Becta stands between a Tory politician and his back-handers from commerce, of course they had to go.

2. The comprehensive system is designed to feed industry with grunts. Your kids are taught what is useful to industry in your area. If you want then to get an education in how to make decisions and do stuff you have to pay for it.