Northgate-is - News Item 719

ALL SCHOOLS IN NORTHERN IRELAND TO RECEIVE NEW LAPTOPS

LL SCHOOLS IN NORTHERN IRELAND TO RECEIVE NEW LAPTOPS
 

Every school in Northern Ireland will receive brand new laptops before June 2008 under a programme being rolled out by the Department of Education and C2k in conjunction with Northgate Education. Twenty thousand new laptops will be provided to nursery, primary, post-primary and special schools under the C2k Managed Service Laptop Option. 

The C2k Managed Service Laptop Option provides schools with notebooks and carrying cases.   It is up to each school to decide how to use their allocated laptops.  They can be used by teachers for their own school work or used as an additional classroom computer. Therefore, schools can ensure that their teachers are provided with high level access to ICT at school and home.

The programme will provide software, including titles from a bank of 250 curriculum resources, as well as Windows XP and access to the Management Information System in the school.  Northgate Education provide the laptops as part of their ICT Managed service to all schools in NI ensuring hardware and software are operating at maximum efficiency.  The ICT specialist provider’s helpdesk ensures schools have all of the access and support they need until November 2011.

Grove Primary in Belfast is one of the first schools to have received the new laptops. Susan Mitchell, ICT Co-ordinator at Grove Primary, took delivery of six new Dell notebooks last week and is ecstatic about the flexibility and improved efficiency that will follow as a result. “The introduction of the laptops has meant that now teachers can access school files at home, allowing them to download forms which are essential for the tracking the progress of pupils. It also enables teachers to access the intranet from home and upload files to print off at school. This enables teachers to keep their pupils up-to-date with news and events as they happen.”

Mary Kane, C2k Implementation Manager explained, “This is a pioneering project by the Department of Education to provide 20,000 laptops to nursery, primary, post-primary, and special schools. We are confident that this huge investment will increase the pace at which ICT is being embedded in schools and will provide teachers with flexible and secure access to their school work.”

Stuart Gunning, C2k Client Director at Northgate Education believes this initiative will be extremely welcome in schools. “All schools will have leading-edge laptops and it won’t cost them a single penny. The C2k Managed Service Laptop Option will provide universal access for the first time,” he said. “Increasingly teachers have to juggle their time and cannot set aside specific periods to access ICT. They need to be able to log on at a time and a place that suits them. They have never had that opportunity before. They will now be able to use the machines in school or via the internet from home. They can be confident that they can pick up their work, plan their lessons and access data in a safe and secure manner. We are aiming to make the whole process as seamless as possible.”

Ends
 

For further information contact Claire Bonner, Morrow Communications Tel: 028 9039 3837

Notes to editors:

About Northgate Information Solutions (www.northgate-is.com/education)

Northgate Information Solutions is a market leader in providing specialist software, outsourcing and information technology (IT) services to the global human resources and UK local government, education and public safety markets.

Northgate, which is listed on the London Stock Exchange, employs over 6,000 staff and operates in 46 countries across 5 continents.

Northgate has approximately 4,500 large/medium customers and approximately 10,500 small to medium enterprise (SME) customers worldwide. Northgate delivers Human Resources solutions to many of the world’s largest organisations, as well as working with 90% of the UK local authorities and all of the UK’s regional police forces.

Northgate Education, Northgate’s specialist Education division, is a leading provider of managed services and solutions in the UK. It provides technology services to over 1,200 schools, with more than 350,000 teachers and learners successfully supported by the company. Northgate provides services to every school in Northern Ireland through C2k, the largest and most comprehensive e-learning initiative ever implemented in the UK. It also provides Information and Communication Technology (ICT) managed services to Bristol City Council and Leicester City Council as part of the government's Building Schools for the Future Programme (BSF) and to over 150 education sites in Hartlepool, from primary schools through to further education. In January 2007, Northgate was awarded an ISO 20000-1 accreditation by the British Standards Institution, for provision of IT service management activities.

C2K, on behalf of the five education and library boards and is responsible for the provision of an information and communications (ICT) managed service to all 1200 schools in NI. C2K is part of the Department of Education for NI and is part funded by the European Union under the Building Sustainable Prosperity programme.