Creating better learning outcomes with infrastructure that’s fit for purpose

Matthew Coleman-Hamilton, Head of Technical and Service Development at Entrust, discusses the impact of Covid-19 on schools’ internet connectivity.

The Coronavirus pandemic has necessitated a completely new way of learning and teaching, placing huge strain on pupils and their teachers. It’s also highlighted a number of challenges to the infrastructure that schools rely on to educate children properly.

Children have only just returned to classrooms for the first time this year, so we don’t really know what the future holds. But we do know that giving everyone access to online content through an appropriate device and a stable internet connection remains critical.

And this is a challenge. Ofcom’s Connected Nations report estimates that 9% of children in the UK don’t have access to a laptop, desktop or tablet, and that more than 880,000 children live in a household with only a mobile internet connection. At the same time, 43,000 homes in the country can’t access a good-quality fixed broadband service or 4G coverage. 

According to figures published by AdEPT Technology Group, the adoption of educational technology (edtech) soared by 131% in 2020 compared to 2019. However, this exponential growth in the use of platforms such as Microsoft Teams and Google Classroom to communicate, collaborate and connect has also exposed a weakness in school infrastructure strategy – that of internet connectivity.

Schools have never had so much choice in who provides their internet services: local and national providers can both provide education-specific services at increasingly competitive prices. But not all connectivity is equal, and availability can still be restricted depending on your location. In fact, a new survey from education charity Teach First shows that 84% of schools with the poorest pupils, and 66% of those with the most affluent students, don’t have enough devices and internet access to ensure that all self-isolating pupils can keep learning.

Many schools have also found that, while a traditional fibre-to-the-cabinet (FTTC) connection can be convenient to install and cost effective to run, it no longer meets the minimum bandwidth requirement for effective teaching and learning. It becomes even more unsuitable – and unreliable – when schools want to offer pupils technological innovations such as livestreamed lessons, severely restricting their ability to provide a remote education effectively.

It’s reasonable to expect that, once children return to the classroom, there’ll also be a return to ‘offline’ teaching and learning across the curriculum. But things will never be the same again: schools have been forced to adapt their pedagogical practice during lockdown and teachers want to move to a more blended learning approach. Seventy one percent of headteachers fully support the increased use of digital learning and 85% of teachers agree or strongly agree that they see great value in using digital learning tools in the classroom (Mark in Style 2020). So, there are many benefits in continuing to build on remote learning and to embrace it, rather than reverting fully back to old methods.

As a result, schools may increasingly see connectivity as something that they need to invest in than as a potential source of savings.

The same can be said about schools’ internal network infrastructures, when children bring the 1.3m devices that they were provided with during lockdown back into school (Children commissioner 2020).Networks that schools previously though were robust may no longer be so under this additional load, and traditional management and monitoring practices may also be put under strain. Schools will have to step up security: there was a 20% rise in cyber-attacks and data breaches in the education sector between July and August 2020 alone. (Education Technology 2020)

In fact, schools are going to have to rethink their entire infrastructure strategy to overcome these challenges and enable their students and teachers to continue to thrive.

At the same time, they’re going to need to invest in the right systems and IT practices: a report by the Educational Policy Institute shows that spending on ICT resources in schools has only increased by 17% since 2003, compared to 42% across other categories of expenditure in the same period.

There’s no doubt that Covid-19 has left an indelible mark on education. And the full reopening of schools in March 2021 is only the beginning of the journey to both recover from and build upon the experience. Technology infrastructure will play a vital and central role in that, enabling schools to make the most of the lessons learned during the pandemic.

Contact us to find out how we can support you with your technology infrastructure.

Matthew Coleman-Hamilton, Head of Technical and Service Development at Entrust