During the opening keynote, Lord Adonis will speak via video link. Some prepared questions have been submitted by members. These follow as comments on this posting.
If you have further comments on Lord Adonis’s responses, please comment.
UPDATE:
Listen to podcast of this session below:
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Under the new arrangements for the Standards Fund in England, funding for ICT is not ring-fenced. How confident are you that schools will make the necessary investment in ICT without a clearer lead from the DfES on the level of the ICT allocation?
Mike Kendall:
The National Education Network will achieve the Prime Minister’s target to connect all schools to each other and the internet by the end of 2006 as a key component in the e-strategy for the national digital infrastructure. Meeting this target represents a considerable achievement for an initiative delivered through Regional Broadband Consortia and Local Authorities against some very difficult challenges, especially in the more rural and less well provided for urban areas across England – and indeed Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
This considerable educational and technical achievement is now under threat due to changes in the allocation of financial support for strategic initiatives. The HE and FE sector through JISC and UKERNA recognises that the marketplace alone cannot deliver a value for money solution, especially for the core network and services for learners, without a centrally coordinated programme of investment and service provision.
Please advise how the DfES plans to secure the continuity of benefit to all schools, staff and learners when the current round of funding ceases in 2007/08.
Roger Broadie:
There seems to be some tension between the approaches in BSF, which call for LA-wide strategies for education, particularly in areas such as 14-19 where student entitlement and choice need to be wide, and the proposals in the current White Paper and the thrust to academies, which put the focus on schools having autonomy to decide themselves what is best. How do you see a balance between these being achieved?
Paul Springford:
Do the new inspection arrangements in English schools, with a reduced focus on individual subjects, remove an important driver for raising standards in and with ICT?
Paul Springford:
Soon, teachers will start to assume that most if not all their pupils can access the school’s learning platform from out of school, with radical implications for how and where they learn. Do you think it will be long before it becomes an entitlement for all pupils to have access to the internet from home?
Question 1 response:
Funding is a key issue, but we have to move to a situation in which ICT funding is integrated into general funding pot. You are key to explaining where this funding is. If you perhaps ask Doug Brown in the next session, he will help you identify where this is
Question 2 response:
A number of major issues are raised by this issue. Congratulations to the RBCs, who have done an excellent job in delivering broadband. It has been a huge task that has been achieved. We are now in a position to deliver innovative services. HE and FE sectors are important, and we are looking at how we can work together. The benefits of SuperJanet and UKNA are proved. Post the present funding regime, we have to get the funding mainstreamed into schools. We cannot pre-judge post the present situation. We have to demonstrate returns on the investment made so far. We have to see real benefits to prove further investment.
Question 3 response:
Another key question … the current situation in terms of BSF, ICT is a declared integral part, and as part of a managed service. We ought to be moving to a managed service rather than an adhoc purchase provision.
Question 4 response:
I don’t believe so. there is challenge here that we are not held back by this. One of the levers is successful inspection. The challenge is that the way in which teaching and learning is advancing, ICT is integrated into good practice, and this needs to be part of it. The Becta Self Review Framework is an excellent model as far as this is concerned. We must encourage schools to self-review, and ICT is at the heart of it.
Question 5 response:
A range of issues here … clearly we are looking at every school to have a learning platform so that every pupil can have a learning space. The SLICT programme is also raising this issue with leaders in schools. Once this is in place, home access through the present £50m funding for disadvantaged will again help in reducing the divide. Part of the focus is on them, but there must also be a culture of known access provision by teachers in schools in order that the homework etc. can be set requiring online provision. There are a whole raft of issues to be addressed, but we want to take it forward. We need to support learners wherever they need to learn.
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