[LINK] Lenovo, Microsoft, Adobe win NSW schools contract

[Marghanita da Cruz]

On the basis of the NSW Premier's media release the decision has been made at
the State with Federal Endorsement/Approval/Funding, highlighting the involvement
of a couple of ministers in marginal seats.
> The digital education revolution is here
> 
> 1 April 2009
<http://www.premier.nsw.gov.au/Newsroom/Articles/2009/April/090401_The_digital_education_revolution_is_here.html>

The real challenge is for the Digital Education Revolution to provide some
substance and outcomes - other than just a windfall to computer vendors.
This is not unlike the challenge facing government agencies at all three levels,
and other organisations.

I have had a bit of experience in selecting and introducing new ICT into
organisations.  I'm a bit a of a centralist/right sourcer and believe there are
economies of scale.  The work on AS8015 Australian Standard for Corporate
Governance of ICT now ISO 38500 - was the start of  highlightighting the
complexity and provide a framework for the efficient and effective use of ICT.
<http://www.ramin.com.au/itgovernance/as8015.html>

The challenge is to find the right balance and to delegate INFORMED decision
making to appropriate roles.

Individual State and Catholic Schools do not set curriculum, building standards or
other policy issues. What happened when Julie Bishop was education minister and
is continuing under the Rudd Government is that the GST windfall is in the hands
of the Federal Government - which means they hand out the money and there would
be some rhetoric around this about being accountable. BTW, NSW has always felt
hard done by in federal funding as it tends not to be based on population. Under
our federal system the smaller states do quite well.

I would suggest the model we need - would include:
*WAN Network Infrastructure (Deployment and Operations probably outsourced to a
Telco by state or possibly federal as part of revamped NBN)
*LAN (possibly outsourced Deployment if not operations)
*In school Technical Support for LAN and Applications, with support from State
HelpDesk/Vendor Management/Second Tier support (possibly also admin of servers,
filters, software mgmt etc)
*State HelpDesk/Vendor Management/Second Tier support
*Federal policy on computer equipment and curriculum should be
national rather than state. But this has to be balanced against the chance
of failure of centralised remote policy making.

Bear in mind the scale of the software vendors and the Australian Population of 
20million = to that of California or Mumbai!

Marghanita
Anthony Hornby wrote:
> I wonder what the incentives are in all of this? I don't know how
> primary / secondary education IT is funded or how decisions about
> platforms / software / hardware are made but I get the feeling from
> discussions on LINK this is decided by education departments and not
> individual schools - is that correct?
> 
> If the schools had direct control over the technology options they
> adopted and any $$$ savings in infrastructure and support costs
> directly flowed to their budgets for teaching / buildings / other
> things with local impact they care about this would be a strong
> motivator to try new and more cost effective approaches that require
> some retraining / new approaches.
> 
> If the decisions are being made for them by middle management
> somewhere in a department and the schools themselves don't see any of
> the potential savings from alternate technologies & approaches there
> wouldn't be much motivation to look outside the established status quo
> (Microsoft + other commercial products) would there?
> 
> Can someone fill me in on how IT for primary / secondary decisions are made?
> 
> Regards Anthony
> 
> 2009/4/2 Marghanita da Cruz <marghanita at ramin.com.au>:
>> The premier's site includes the list of Microsoft and Adobe products the
>> students will get....this sounds more like an advertising/endorsement than a
>> tender contract.
>>
>>> The digital education revolution is here
>>>
>>> 1 April 2009
>>>
>>> Premier Nathan Rees today announced that a $150 million contract to build up to 267,000 laptops has been awarded to Lenovo (Australia and New Zealand) Pty Ltd.
>> <snip>
>> <http://www.premier.nsw.gov.au/Newsroom/Articles/2009/April/090401_The_digital_education_revolution_is_here.html>
>>
>> --
>> Marghanita da Cruz
>> http://www.ramin.com.au
>> Phone: (+61)0414 869202
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Link mailing list
>> Link at mailman.anu.edu.au
>> http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
>>
> 


-- 
Marghanita da Cruz
http://www.ramin.com.au
Phone: (+61)0414 869202