Kyocera - How can the education sector overcome its IT struggles?

For education organisations that are already maxed out meeting the everyday needs of their students, the idea of a cyberattack crippling key IT systems is a real nightmare. Nevertheless, cybercrime, whether for financial gain or for malicious reasons, is such a large-scale problem that no organisation is safe.

Protecting your IT systems from cyberattack depends, to a large degree, on keeping software up-to-date and taking advantage of the latest security features available. This is why obsolete hardware and software, which is no longer supported with patches by the developer, can be a serious security risk – and this may be a compelling reason for many schools to invest in new IT infrastructure.

Fortunately, alongside the other benefits of adopting cloud technology, it also helps protect your data and processes. For example, with Microsoft Azure, your whole system is protected against malware attacks by Microsoft Defender, and Azure provides client-side and server-side encryption to safeguard your files. Azure is constantly updated and uses the most cutting-edge security, making a successful attack on your organisation extremely unlikely.

IT professionals are in high demand across the board. Many businesses struggle to hire all the staff they need, and this competitive marketplace means that the skilled people education institutions need in order to reach digital maturity are scarce, geographically concentrated in cities and certain regions (a factor that may help explain why the study found highly digitally mature schools were more likely to be located in urban areas), and may also be beyond the budget of schools that are already stretched financially.

Without these skills, it can be very difficult for leaders and teachers who are, after all, not tech professionals, to know what IT solutions they need or how to implement them. The research found that amongst schools’ biggest challenges was a lack of technical ability, concerns about the security of their documents and systems, and sometimes a feeling that staff lacked confidence in their ability to increase their use of technology.

The recent surge in inflation, stacked on top of the effects of persistently low economic growth over the last 15 years and austerity policies, has left many in the education sector facing difficult choices with their budgets. Maintaining adequate staffing levels, ensuring pupils receive the best possible education and looking after ageing infrastructure can all, understandably, take priority over expanding the use of digital solutions. However, keeping obsolete IT infrastructure in place along with outdated processes also becomes more challenging and expensive over time.

Digital transformation can, along with all the other potential benefits, reduce costs in key areas in the long run. Moving infrastructure to the cloud allows education institutions to do away with some or all of their on-site servers, leading to a reduction in hardware costs and energy consumption. Cloud computing can also reduce the burden on IT staff as updates are delivered automatically and you also benefit from the cutting-edge security and uptime offered by the world’s biggest technology companies. The only real drawback is that this reliance on cloud computing requires organisations to have site-wide, reliable internet connectivity with decent bandwidth; however, “connecting the classroom” has clear benefits for both teachers and students.