[SLUG] Re: Linux in schools

[Stephen O'Neill]

rob at waylock.co.uk wrote:
> BECTA guidelines are just that - guidelines. We occasionally fly in the face of what BECTA recommend but we still provide a proper service to the staff and students here.

I appreciate that BECTA can be ignored on a local level, however at LEA 
and national level they form a core part of the criteria for tenders - 
and BECTA accreditation on its own is worth having.

So I guess my question is about how much independence do you have as a 
school? To what extent can you implement your own solutions before your 
LEA will tell you to stop?

I know that some of our sales guys were told by an LEA to not approach 
any of their schools directly, which from what I understand was an 
example of the LEA overstepping its jurisdiction - the schools were able 
and keen to speak to us still.

However, the big money is still held further up the food chain so the 
schools are limited by that.

I was interested by what you said about CMIS, we have less experience of 
that, and more of SIMS which afaik is totally windows dependent. Is SIMS 
the more common choice, or is our customer set too small?


> This I'm keeping an open mind on. .Net is all well and good until M$ throw one of their paddies and change something again!

Aye, we're all in your boat with that.

Cheers for the extra info by the way - it's interesting for me as I tend 
to be shielded from a lot of this stuff.

Steve O

	
	
		
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