Inequality in Government-school software deal

Students using their own computers for lessons cannot use the $10 million software deal available to schools.
RICHARD WOOD reports.

Schools are about to receive $10 million of software the Government has licensed from Microsoft, but students will not benefit equally.

The end-user licence agreement does not allow the software to be loaded on computers owned by students.

This means home-based students on the Correspondence School's 18,000 roll will not have access to the software. Nor does the deal work for home-schooled students.

The Correspondence School chief executive, Rod Browning, said the deal targeted mainstream schools.

"We are in a different environment, so it will still be useful for our teachers, but it is limited."

The Minister of Education, Trevor Mallard, said the deal was a pilot.

Provision for correspondence and home-school students would be canvassed in next year's review of the agreement for 2004 onward.

The software-loading veto also affects pupils at the 11 schools that require students to bring their own notebooks to classes.

Microsoft education spokesman Ross Peat confirmed that students could not load the software on to personally owned computers.

A special offer of "Office for Teachers and Students" was available at present for $299, he said. That price is well above Mr Mallard's figure last year of $65 a computer for the full range of software that schools will get.

Edcom, a division of Multi Serve Education Trust, is ready to distribute the software to schools but they have to sign the licence agreement first. The deal is being held up by negotiation over details.

The software agreement covers state and integrated schools. Independent schools, which number about 100, can buy into the program at a per-workstation equivalent to what the Government is paying.

Restrictions limit school staff and teacher's home-use of the software to to Office and CORE/BO CAL. The later gives remote access to the school servers.

Edcom national manager Margaret Lamont said it had been intended originally that all the desktop software would be available to teachers.

Further, the software can be used from home only for school purposes.

One principal said: "For some of us that are married to education, where do you draw the line?"

Microsoft's Mr Peat said that each school was responsible for policing the agreement.

Another detail in the licencing is that the Windows operating system is an upgrade, not the full pack.

Schools will need an existing valid Windows licence for each Machine they upgrade.

On the plus side, any earlier operating system to Windows XP can be chosen, as well as XP Professional.

Also, schools get only one copy each of the full suite of software. . Further copies are expected to cost more than $50 a copy.

The software can also be distributed across a network.

The principal of independent St Kentigern College, Warren Peat, said that although the deal was a worthwhile beginning, the school was holding off.

Besides the personal notebooks issue, licence fees would have to be paid for all PC machines, including print servers, regardless of software use.

This related to the licence being to the institution, but the fee structure for independent schools being per workstation.

Ms Lamont said the deal was based on a total PC count for schools. The offer to independent schools was in line with that.

Warren Peat said licensing the user, rather than the organisation, would be a way around these issues and benefit home learners - between 4 and 8 per cent of students.



The software deal covers Microsoft Windows operating systems, Microsoft Office Professional including the Macintosh version, Works, Front Page, the Microsoft Press Office Starts Here application for online staff training, Microsoft Back Office client access licence, the Encarta reference suite and the Visual Studio Professional programming tools.