'Plan B' for school computers

Talks on £300m private finance project collapsed

A new plan is being adopted to equip Northern Ireland's schools with computers and net links, following the collapse of a £300m project.

The Education Department for Northern Ireland had been in lengthy negotiations with a consortium involving the educational computer firms RM and ICL, to undertake its Classroom 2000 project.

But the talks collapsed last month with the consortium unwilling to accept the risk demanded by the government under the "private finance initiative" (PFI).

Instead, various elements of the project will now be contracted out separately.

Installation of school computers will be done through suppliers on the approved "managed service" list operated by the government computer agency, Becta.

Networking and internet access - currently under contract to DIALnet until 2002 - will be put out to tender probably next week.

Fallback

Bids will be invited to provide fast "broadband" connectivity for all Northern Ireland's schools.

Rights to use educational content from some 280 suppliers will be procured by the education department centrally on behalf of schools.

The head of the project, Tom McMullin, told BBC News Online: "This was always Plan B.

"If it had been better than Plan A it would have been Plan A - so clearly it was not our preferred position.

"But at the end of the day we couldn't reach agreement with the ICL-RM consortium, and we weren't prepared to enter into a contract that would not have been in the interest of our schools."

But he said there would be a "very effective" service.

"Make no mistake about it, there's a significant investment being made here and it will be a very high quality service, it will just be different in key aspects to the ten-year PFI."