Business Focus is a weekly column providing at-a-glance
statistics and commentary on spending priorities and trends in
particular sectors. This week we look at the education
sector.
Spending on IT in the education sector is very low in comparison
with the cross-industry UK average. Smaller educational
establishments spend an average of £915 per desktop, compared with
a UK-wide average of £3,132 among small and medium-sized
enterprises. Larger educational institutions spend an average of
£1,839, compared with £8,455 across all industries.
The numbers may come as a surprise to some, given the various
initiatives to improve IT use in schools and the growth in
e-learning at a vocational and professional level.
A report by Becta, the government agency in charge of
education and vocational training, estimated that the cost of
upgrading every school IT desktop in the UK could be as much as
£160m.
However, the uniformity of requirements across the country does
mean that the sector is able to benefit from competitive
centralised agreements with software and hardware suppliers.
Despite the lure of open source software, Becta said it was
committed to a licensing agreement it has with Microsoft, which
gives schools discounts on much of its software.
Becta said the licensing agreement establishes significant
savings for those schools across the UK that use Microsoft
products.
"Depending on the mix of products purchased, schools should be
spending between 20% and 37% less than might have been expected in
the absence of the Becta Microsoft Memorandum of Understanding," it
said.
Becta to scrutinise Microsoft in schools
Analysis of spending in other sectors
methodology
The analysis is based on Computer Weekly's database of more than
60,000 IT budget holders, twice yearly user IT expenditure surveys,
CBI/Kew senior executive surveys, government surveys, government
demographic data, HM Treasury economic forecasts and Cambridge
Econometrics industry sector forecasts.
Further details
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