UK schools are left unprepared for future IT guidelines as internal politics – from colleagues, senior management and conflicting departmental priorities – force IT buyers into pressurised purchase decisions that don’t follow official guidelines, according to a new report ‘The state of UK schools: IT Equipment, Budget Cuts and the role of Ofsted’ by Casio Projectors.
The new study, which questioned 100+ IT buyers in UK schools, was commissioned to help increase understanding of the pressures facing technology buyers in schools. It found that just one in 10 IT buyers (12%) base their IT/AV purchase decisions ‘a lot’ or ‘considerably’ on guidelines set by Ofsted.
Feeling the pressure
The trickle-down effect of the coalition Government’s ‘budget freeze’ was also cause for concern, with nearly three quarters (73%) of IT buyers surveyed experiencing cuts to their schools IT/AV budget.
In the last year,approximately 8,800* UK schools (36%) experienced cuts of up to 15%, while 2,900 (12%) schools have seen their IT budget slashed by over 30%. When asked to select the top sources of pressure when allocating their schools IT/AV budget, internal pressures were ranked as the most common stressors:
- Half of respondent (50%) felt pressure from senior managers/the schooling board.
- Almost half (47%) admitted feeling pressure from teachers in their school.
- A quarter (25%) felt pressure from conflicting department priorities.
- Ofsted guidelines emerged as a lower source of pressure, with only 6% of IT buyers selecting this option in their response.
“With internal pressures and cut IT budgets placing increased pressure on IT buyers in schools, it is perhaps no surprise that a high percentage are not considering the long term implications of their purchase decisions,” said Gemma Platt, product marketing ,anager at Casio Projectors.
Read Casio’s full report here: ‘The state of UK schools: IT Equipment, Budget Cuts and the role of Ofsted’