In a previous 2005 report the Government quango Becta showed that schools could effect considerable savings by making use of Free Open Source software such as Open Office. In their study they simply looked at 'like for like' software replacement using existing networks and computers.

Since this study we have seen the emergence of the new breed of ultra-portable Linux-based computers aimed squarely at the education sector and the inexorable build of Web 2 services such as Google Apps.

This week the Elonex One, a Linux-based laptop costing less than £100, was launched at the Education Show in Birmingham causing much excitement amongst the visitors and a very serious discussion about how best to support this new breed of Linux laptops in schools.

So much has changed so quickly that a model of Open Source school computing is emerging which could save the UK taxpayer billions of pounds and provide enormous opportunities for the home-grown technology sector based around Open Source software.

The problem

The Government does not produce figures for the total cost of ICT in schools. Our research shows however that when staffing and power use are included a typical secondary school will spend between £100,000 - £200,000 per year on ICT.

Scale this figure for the whole UK and it approximates to over £½ billion per year.

Contrary to common perception, however, only a small fraction of the cost of ICT in schools is spent on computers and software - 60% of the cost is on technical support and 20% on electricity.

Quite simply, school networks have become too complex for the purpose they serve.

The answer is to simplify the school ICT infrastructure and lower services by outsourcing more services.

Outsourcing

Outsourced services based on free Open Source software such as e-mail, content filtering and remote backup are entirely appropriate to an education sector:

• Content filtering using Dan's Guardian is very powerful and scalable.
• E-mail using Open Source software is sophisticated, highly available and secure. Easy management of webmail and accounts using GOsa.
• Rsync for secure, remote back-ups.

Examples of where such services already exist are a bi-lingual webmail system accessible to all schools in Carmarthenshire County and the fully managed web content filtering infrastructure available to all schools within the Yorkshire and Humberside region.

In both cases the use of free, Open Source technologies has driven exceptional value compared to similar systems deployed using proprietary software.

Simplifying On-Site Infrastructure

Much of the complexity and management burden to schools comes the sheer number of computers needing maintenance - typically 100-500 desktop PCs and approximately eight network servers (file-authentication server, MIS database server, e-mail server, Intranet server, VLE server, thin-client server, web content filtering servers and a firewall).

But what ICT services do students really require from their school?

• Access to suitable software for teaching and learning
• E-mail
• Safe access to the Internet
• A home folder for personal file storage
• Access to shared resources (e.g. Intranet, VLEs, Public Folders, Databases)

How does the emerging model for Open Source in ICT meet these essential needs?

• The new low-cost Linux sub-notebooks have a very large range of Free Open Source applications already installed and many more available for free download, certainly enough for 95% of all educational needs. Many more applications are available on line through Web 2.0 technologies.
• E-mail and safe Internet access will be outsourced.
• Home folders and shared resources can be provided by one computer. By using Internet protocols and abandoning the venerable Windows SMP/CIFS protocols all of these services can be provided by one Open Source database/web server.

If schools moved their ICT to this model the spiral of ever increasing cost and complexity would be broken.

Becta, having twice warned schools against upgrading to Vista or Office 2007, has effectively signalled a halt to what has been an unbroken series of expensive and increasingly ineffective upgrades. It seems 2008 is the year when schools should take stock and rethink their strategic approach to ICT.

The rewards for change are very substantial. Schools would reduce their costs by 4/5ths producing not only an enormous saving to the taxpayer but making it possible to adapt to new developments in ICT and focus more resources on teaching. New opportunities would be created for the domestic technology industry and there would be far less dependence on dominant multinational suppliers.

Yes, it does seem unlikely doesn't it? Windows has been the only reality for several generations of computer users. But is the tide finally beginning to turn?

At the Education Show held in February 2007, the talk was of 'sustainable' computing and how schools could use technology to reduce their 'carbon footprint'. Nobody had any idea of what was to come – a host of Linux-based, ultra-portable, incredibly cheap and very green personal laptops.

Asus's EeePC was the first to arrive in the UK and has been aggressively marketed by RM plc (traditionally a Microsoft supplier). The EeePC sold out within days of its launch. RM's projected sales for the EeePC are 250,000 units in 2008.

At the Education Show this year British supplier Elonex will launch their 'Elonex One' sub-notebook. A Linux-based device that will retail for less than £100.

Eighteen months ago it would be unthinkable to make the prediction that by 2013 Linux would supplant Windows as the operating system of choice for most school children. We're now beginning to think the unthinkable.

What the new notebooks have in common

• The sub-notebooks are small. Typically they have a 7" screen and weigh under a kilo.
• They use 2 watts to 6 watts of power, have no hard disk or CDROM.
• They have 2-8 GB of solid-state storage and all run Linux as their principle operating system.
• Costs ranges from sub-£100 to around £200.
• They are very robust products aimed squarely at the 'school bag' but most will also work with the keyboards, mice and monitors already at use in schools.

The leading contenders

The One Laptop per Child Project (laptop.org) has the wireless X0-1, is aimed at emerging markets, currently costs less than $200 and runs a version of Red Hat's Fedora Linux.

Intel's Classmate offers two versions of Linux operating systems both using the Red Hat package manager. They also have a Windows XP version.

Asus' EeePC supplied to schools by RM costs less than £170 to educational buyers and uses a Debian-based Linux operating system.

Britains' Elonex's 'Elonex-One' and Canada's InkMedia products have emerged very recently, having detachable keyboards, costing less than £100 and again using a Debian-derived Linux operating systems.

These products are popular because of their size, their cost and the range of software that they come with. The fact that they run Linux and come with free, open source applications is largely unnoticed by the users.

Why Linux and not Windows?

Windows XP Home can run on devices like the EeePc and the Classmate but it is not officially supported by Microsoft and thus obsolete.

Worse still, RM plc is selling their Windows XP Home version of the EeePC to schools for 50% more than the Linux version. A £269 notebook will do nothing for school children. Proprietary lock-in tactics so successful in monopolising the desktop, have less effect on a new generation plugged into Web 2.0 and SaaS technologies.

Windows Vista will never be able to run on this new breed of personal computer. Even Becta, the government's quango overseeing the use of ICT by schools, admits Vista is too hungry for power and resources for use by most schools. Microsoft, it appears, simply does not have an operating system ready to fit the new niche. Windows CE is dead and the Pocket PC won't scale up.

Convergence technologies based on Linux are now everywhere - smart phones, set-top boxes, PDAs, satellite navigators, digital photo frames. Any concerns that such devices would be unacceptable to users because they don't run Windows are unfounded. Quite the opposite.

Some go as far as argue that Microsoft has tacitly admitted defeat in as much as they have signed a patent protection agreement with the Linux distributions used by the Classmate (Novell) and the EeePC (Xandros).

Summary

Children need access to technology that is affordable, robust and able to bridge the digital divide between rich and poor. This new generation of computers offers just that. Open Source software has made it possible to provide every child with access to the Internet, high quality office software and to a wide range of graphics and music software. As schools adapt to a new reality - one laptop per child – the only viable, supportable, affordable option is low cost, highly portable laptops running Linux not Windows.

This report analyses BECTA's procurement frameworks and concludes that they have placed school ICT in the hands of only a few of the biggest suppliers and that this is now acting to the detriment of school computing.

ICT has been part of schools for the past thirty years. During this time the number of computers per pupil has risen from vanishingly small to 1:3.9 and is set rise to 1:1 in the near future. School administration, an early adopter of technology is now highly dependent on computing facilities and all schools have some kind of managemant information sofware (MIS). Classroom computing is dominated by Research Machines plc (RM) and administration technology is similarly dominated by Capita plc. ICT expenditure and ICT-related energy consumption naturally has increased massively. Energy consumption, in particular, now annually represents approximately 25% of the hardware capital cost.

Sustainability

The Government is concerned that schools make good use of these expensive facilities. School financial administrators are for their part starting to look warily at their energy costs and many are questioning whether their ICT represents good value or, is sustainable. By way of illustrating their concern, next month's Education Executive (a magazine that is aimed entirely at school financial administrators) dedicates most of the issue to the new greener ICT options as well as the raft of new low cost technologies available to schools.

Early Diversity

The ICT procurement framework for schools was introduced with the best of intentions. Becta, a Government quango, sought to bring structure to the school ICT sector. Ten years ago schools supported a huge diversity of ICT suppliers and equipment, some very small, and many were startups that later failed. Others grew into large, publicly traded corporations. This state of affairs reflected the rapidly evolving market building on the personal computer revolution rather than the traditional inflexible top-down corporate IT that still dominated the business sector. This period was one of unprecedented creativity in the writing of educational software but its very diversity threatened the development plans for ICT in the public sector.

Rationalisation

Thus the 'one man band' was officially deprecated in favour of stable, large organisations and this was accompanied by a signing of a memorandum of understanding between Microsoft and the newly elected Labour government. The effect was to monopolise school's ICT provision, both in terms of equipment and software, around Microsoft Windows. Home grown companies such as Acorn computers hitherto very successful finally ceded to Windows computers and the small suppliers were replaced by major vendors such as Ramesys, Capita, RM, Viglen and Akhter.

The upgrade cycle

The major school vendors who formed the coterie of approved suppliers to the procurement framework in turn bought from even bigger vendors such as Microsoft and Intel. In return they benefited directly from 'discounted' education licences for software and the current school business model was created.

Schools at that time did not have devolved budgets so even if they wanted they were tied to the directives of their Local Authorities (LA). The LAs were tied to approved suppliers, and the latter, in turn were tied to the vast near monopolies from whom they bought their discounted operating systems and office software.

Therefore all were tied to upgrade cycles and lock-in strategies common in the industrial sector. The rest is as we say 'history'. Schools were tied to one model (as were most businesses it must be said) and to a closed list of BECTA-approved vendors who were also tied to the same model.

Unintended consequences

The events described had the effect of introducing extreme conservatism in the education sector. This had an important consequence. The ability to adapt to change was severely curtailed and development was placed under the control of distant third parties. At first this did not appear obvious nor did it seem a problem.

Schools abandoned Apple and Acorn computers and switched to Windows. Windows 95 had been a great success and schools started out in earnest with Windows 98/NT and MS Office. They continued through Windows 2000/ME and then to Windows XP. Each incarnation of operating system required better computers, costlier software and used more and more power. In times of plenty this was largely ignored especially as money was poured into ICT eduction. In a previous article we outlined the enormous scale of the spending and pointed out that BECTA could not even account for £200 million money given to schools through their e-credit (elc) scheme. The building schools for the future project (BSF) was taking shape and the procurement frameworks defined the suppliers. £400,000 was the 'entry fee' for bidders, few LAs had the confidence to challenge their legal ties to the procurement frameworks.

Times change

There is not so much money to go around in 2008 for software, licences and equipment yet there is a target to provide every child with a computer. Moreover climate change has become a serious issue and carbon reduction targets must be met. Schools for example have been asked to be carbon neutral by 2016. School computing by contrast has doubled its energy consumption every 6 years for the last 30 years and now accounts for the output of an entire power station. Energy costs are rising fast and schools from 2007 have to pay the going commercial rate for power where previously they had been subsidised.

Becta wakes up

Very late in the day, Becta woke up and realised for themselves that the cycle of spending would never stop and advised schools in October 2007 and again in Jan 2008 not to upgrade to Microsoft Vista or MS Office 2007 on the grounds that they contained no feature that schools needed. Additionally, BECTA calculated it would require an renewal of 50% of the schools' existing stock even if it were desirable. They did not add the increased energy consumption to their calculations however.

The end of the frameworks?

Too late! Becta's procurement framework mean that alternatives that could meet schools' needs in terms of energy consumption, extending life of equipment, eliminating licence costs and taking advantage of new technologies such as the ultra portable low-cost laptops are not possible.

Why not? Simply because most innovations were coming from a different IT sector namely the Open Source Software (OSS) movement. No OSS supplier appears on the Becta framework. Even the most experienced and durable companies with deep industrial competence do not appear on their list. It is a closed shop.

Meanwhile the incumbent suppliers are utterly tied to the old upgrade model. Schools cannot move forward and they cannot look elsewhere unless they a brave enough to go it alone which understandably few are as this would mean defying Becta and going against their ultra cautious Local Authorities.

At a stroke Becta's rigid process model has paralysed the entire sector and promotes a culture of cronyism amongst 'approved' suppliers. The quango's response has been that of the committed apparatchik. Becta hopes that one of its existing suppliers will embrace Open Source software and business models but all the signs are that this is a forlorn hope. They have even awarded a major Open Source project to one of its 'approved' suppliers without even going out to tender. A company with no history or experience in OSS.

The most likely outcome is that OSS will be used by these vendors to lower their own costs. They will not change their business model. OSS will be employed invisibly in servers and embedded systems and schools will never have the cost benefits passed on to them. The only way that the market can become responsive again is for Becta's moribund procurement frameworks to be abolished.