Is BECTA for the Chop?

In the scramble to find quango-related cost savings, the evidence is building that BECTA - the Govt agency charged with leading the investment in educational technology - is high on the list of targets for a possible Conservative administration in 2010.

A fascinating report from the IoD and TaxPayers Alliance (widely regarded as a “front” for leading Conservative thinkers) outlines in some detail how they propose that £50bn of annualised savings can be made in Government spending. Leaving aside the political arguments over cuts proposed in the report, the document certainly makes for interesting reading. It provides a line-by-line explanation of the estimated cost savings that can be made by closing a wide range of Government-funded programmes.

And the future for BECTA? Here is what the report’s authors conclude:

“Abolish the British Educational Communications and Technology Agency (BECTA). BECTA oversees IT procurement and technology strategy for schools in England and Wales. This has had negative consequences for many schools, precluding them from organising IT facilities and programmes as they see necessary. It hinders an open and competitive market, and if schools were to be allocated money directly, the sensible option would be to let them purchase the equipment that they required according to their needs. Abolishing BECTA would realise a saving of £11 million.”

It would be a controversial move, but I suspect not one regretted by the vast majority of teachers.

Another plus would be that the gaping hole BECTA’s demise would create in the centre of the main hall at the BETT Show could be used to actually showcase real students (rather than bureaucrats) using technology as part of their leaning.

The BECTA Stand at the Bett Show 2009 - possibly the most expensive way yet discovered to handout glossy educational brochures that non-one ever reads