Galway (IE), June 2010 - The UK government's decision to abolish the education ICT agency Becta by November has been met with mixed views. The scrapping is part of cuts worth £6.2 billion in what Chancellor George Osbourne has called "wasteful" public spending. While up to 240 jobs will go and its services cut, many are asking if Becta will truly be missed.
The British Educational Communications and Technology Agency (Becta) was established in 1998 with the objective of guiding the strategic direction and development of national education policy to best take advantage of technology. In its capacity, it oversaw the procurement of all ICT equipment and eLearning strategy for schools.
The agency was part of the Labour's government's plans to bridge the "digital divide" by ensuring that all children have access to a computer in their home. Becta encouraged secondary schools to employ virtual learning environments so parents could monitor their child's progress in the classroom. It also sought to arrange framework agreements to ensure reasonable prices for ICT in the classroom and among other things, provided laptops and broadband to over 200,000 of Britain's poorest children.
While Becta's lofty ambitions of integrating ICT into every classroom in the UK are commendable, the reality rarely matched the original plans. The agency was initially mandated to make ICT more assessable to the tech-naïve teacher by procuring hardware and infrastructure from suppliers.
Arrangements were made between Becta and IT suppliers that left little in the way of input from schools. With so little say in the decision-making process, all too often schools were left frustrated by inadequate technology not fit for its purpose. The inability to source the required technology was confirmed recently when Becta admitted that only one school in five knew how to effectively utilise the new technology.
A further complaint about the agency was that its building schemes were so inflexible that the technology was out of date by the time schools opened. For example, prearranged contracts between Becta and IT suppliers frequently meant that hefty fees had to be paid to IT suppliers if even the most basic of new software was to be installed. These exorbitant fees resulted in reluctance to update software, which resulted in the technology becoming antiquated very quickly.
As technology evolves at a lightning-quick pace, downloading the latest free software would have allowed schools to keep their systems up to date. Instead, large sums of money were profligately used to upgrade systems. Becta also sourced expensive versions of the latest eLearning software to create enhanced learning outcomes in the classroom. However this proved to be ineffective and an inefficient waste of funds as the majority of users were unable to utilise the eLearning software.
Today there is a multitude of free high-quality open-source software on the web that achieves the same objective as the expensive software Becta procured. The Irish-based provider of free online courses ALISON recently forged strategic partnerships with both the British Council and the Irish Health Safety Authority and will soon pass the 500,000 in terms of registered learners.
The website offers free interactive self-paced training courses and certification in a wide variety of topics including ICT, health and safety, and schools' curriculum. The resources are ideal for students and teachers alike, and as government funding in eLearning programmes in schools is axed, ALISON offers an ideal substitute.
