Last week the Australia Government announced the details for the first round of the "National Secondary School Computer fund" a program aimed at providing IT resources (mainly computers) to secondary schools.
The program is aimed at years 9 to 12, with an estimated $1.1 billion being provided over the next 5 years - round 1's aim is to change the student to computer ratio for schools that had a current ratio of 1:8 or worse to a target ratio of 1:2.
The basis of the fund is to provide $1,000 for a computer to schools to achieve this aim.
Last week the successful schools for round 1 were announced along with their computer allocation. I have taken this opportunity to break this detail out to see the full extend of the offering and to look at areas that have been missed.
Looking at the basic data, the top 20 schools in Australia to receive computers collected 8812 PC's for an average of 441 PC's per school, the total cost for the top 20 is $8,812,00. In pulling these details apart I am interested in the capacity for these schools to handle all these computers - the on costs that might be associated.
How does Bendigo Senior Secondary school go about placing, setting up, allocating, managing and providing professional development and training for an additional 774 computers in the school. I think the work and effort for the school must be huge, granted getting that many machines means a lot more access to technology (1:2) for students and teachers. I also feel sorry for this school, within the Victorian system schools are connected to the Victorian government wide area network with fibre connections, unfortunately the Education Department/Vic Government then make the school pay for downloads through a rage of ISP's, which means schools are always looking at their usage based on their download plans and how much it will cost rather than using the internet for educational purposes without having to worry about download costs. So imagine the issues some of the school face with additional computers that can connect to the school network and then to the internet.
Top 20 Schools
- Bendigo Senior Secondary College - Government, Vic
- Balwyn High School - Government, Vic
- Essendon East Keilor District College - Government, Vic
- All Saints College - Catholic, NSW
- Cherrybrook Technology High School - Government, NSW
- Lilydale High School - Government, Vic
- Oakhill College - Catholic, NSW
- Wantirna College - Government, Vic
- Westfields Sports High School - Government, NSW
- Glenunga International High School - Government, SA
- Strathmore Secondary College - Government, Vic
- Doncaster Secondary College - Government, Vic
- Grace Lutheran College, Rothwell - Independent, Qld
- Kiama High School - Government, NSW
- St Francis Xavier's College - Catholic, NSW
- Henry Kendall High School - Government, NSW
- Kepnock State High School - Government, Qld
- Gladstone Park Secondary College - Government, Vic
- Fairvale High School - Government, NSW
- Mowbray College - Independent, Vic
A full list in order of number of PC's allocated can be accessed here...Download digital_revolution_rd_1_school_order.pdf
I have taken all the details from the round 1 information and have counted up the total computers provided and worked out a few of the costs and details:
- Number of schools involved: 896
- Total number of PC's: 116,820
- Total Estimated cost: $116,820,000
- Number of students impacted: 233,640
- Number of teachers impacted: 9346
We can then break down this data further by sector:
- Government Schools received - 71% (82,482 PC's, worth $82,482,000)
- Catholic Schools received - 19% (22,571 PC's, worth $22,571,000)
- Independent Schools received - 10% (11,767 PC's, worth $11,767,000)
Extending the Equation
The following is an extension of the round 1 data that the Australian Government has not calculated into this digital revolution and I hope that you see the picture of what challenges we as educators, school leaders, students and parents face.
Given the details, I have made a number of estimates and assumptions around 3 key issues that the federal government has not considered in providing financial support. The 3 key areas are:
- Technical Support
- Professional Learning and Support
- Required Infrastructure
With each of these areas I have placed a monetary value on the service required to support just these new PC's being provided to schools:
- Technical - a ratio of 1 tech to every 50 PC's on a salary of $60,000 including on-costs (super etc)
- PL & S - to enable successful use of these devices then fully 1/3 of total funding should be allocated for professional learning and support
- Infrastructure - these computers will each need one power point and network point both priced at $50 per each installation
There are areas in my calculations that do not take into account school management and administration, government administration, servers, software, growing internet services and network upgrades (to name but a few).
Using these details the federal government really needs to up the ante and find the following to support schools implement and use these computers in a meaningful way with their students:
- Technical staff required: 2336
- Technical support staff costs: $140,184,000
- Professional Development costs: $38,940,000
- Infrastructure costs: $11,682,000
These figures equate to a total requirement for round 1 of $307,626,000 which is $190,806,000 more than allocated by the government. Overall these extra key areas represent an increased difference of 163%. We are talking huge numbers here and these missed areas constitute a major oversight by the government.
- So who carries these additional costs?
- What programs are impacted at State, regional and school level to support this initiative?
- What could we do with this money if educators and students were better consulted?
If anything I hope that this post makes you think about what is happening - remember we are only currently talking about secondary schools - primary schools have not been involved yet. Please pass this onto fellow teachers, students and parents to discuss and talk about. I am not sure this is the best option for us in Australia. What do you think?
Here is the State/Territory break down of my calculations...Download digital_revolution_rd_1_extending_the_details.pdf
