Budget
Primary sector budget (average per school)
2018/19: £14,360
2019/20 (projection): £14,820 (3%)
Secondary sector budget (average per school)
2018/19: £60,290
2019/20 (projection): £62,290 (+3%)
Primary school ICT budgets have risen by £8m over seven years, through periods of expansion and contraction.
Secondary school ICT budgets have also had periods of expansion and contraction, though they have reduced by £17m over the last seven years.
Predictions show that in the 2019/20 academic year, spending on ICT will be as follows:
Primaries – an average of £14,770 per school
Secondaries – an average of £57,910 per school
Challenges for schools
Ensuring adequate training for teachers in using ICT resources remains the biggest challenge for primary schools (39%), though the level of concern has dropped from 54% in 2018.
The second biggest challenge is securing funds for ICT (36%), though this too has fallen from 2018 (47%).
The biggest challenge for secondary schools is securing funds (67%), a rise of 11% since 2018 (56%). The second biggest challenge is ensuring adequate training for teachers (49%), but this concern has seen a 17% fall since last year (66%).
Device purchases
Due to BYOD schemes and pressures on ICT spending, secondary schools are recording lower levels of device purchases both now and in the future, whereas primaries are seeing a rise. In 2019, the average number of devices across primary schools is 76.7, increasing to an average of 85.2 in 2020 (+11%). For secondary schools, the 2019 average stands at 384.6, decreasing to 363.9 in 2020 (-5%).
ICT downgrading
In 2019, only 10% of primaries downgraded their ICT significantly, compared to 25% downgrading in 2018. This is a drop of 15%.
Similarly, only 6% of secondaries significantly downgraded their ICT in 2019, compared to 12% in 2018; a drop of 6%.
Changes in ICT investment
Changes in ICT investments invariably means negative impacts on many areas within primary schools. These schools indicated the likelihood of negative impacts as follows:
Classroom ICT – 45%
Digital content – 40%
Learning platforms – 34%
Pupil devices – 31%
Teacher devices – 25%
Systems software – 8%
Assessment solutions – 5%
Wifi – 4%
Broadband – 3%
22% of primaries reported no negative impact from changes in ICT investment.
Primary schools indicated the positive impact of ICT investment changes as:
Teacher devices – 31%
Pupil devices – 26%
Software systems – 26%
Wifi – 23%
Broadband – 16%
Assessment solutions – 12%
Classroom ICT – 9%
Digital content – 8%
Learning platforms – 4%
35% of primaries reported no positive impact from changes in ICT investment.
Secondaries also reported both positive and negative impacts of ICT investments. They suggested the following impact likelihoods:
Negative:
Classroom ICT – 36%
Digital content – 26%
Pupil devices – 25%
Learning platforms – 20%
Teacher devices – 16%
Systems software – 5%
Assessment solutions – 3%
Wifi – 2%
Broadband – 1%
38% of secondaries reported no negative impact.
Positive:
Systems software – 35%
Teacher devices – 28%
Wifi – 23%
Broadband – 23%
Pupil devices – 20%
Digital content – 19%
Learning platforms – 15%
Assessment solutions – 11%
Classroom ICT – 10%
24% of secondaries reported no positive impact.
Cloud
58% of secondary schools have implemented cloud services, whereas only 36% of primary schools have done so.
The full report is available on BESA’s website here.