By Steve Ranger, 11 January 2006 13:25
NEWS
Former e-Envoy Andrew Pinder has been appointed chair of the government agency which oversees the use of IT in schools and colleges.
Pinder will chair Becta, which earlier this week announced it was reviewing Microsoft's licensing programmes for education. Skills minister Phil Hope said in a statement: "Andrew was the Prime Minister's e-Envoy and has worked in both the private and public sectors in his career. He will play a key role in driving forward technology in the education agenda."Pinder was e-Envoy from 2001 to 2004, when the post was replaced with government CIO - a post held until recently by Ian Watmore.
Pinder said the new role is a "great opportunity".
He said in a statement: "I firmly believe that technology is vital to the future of education not for its own sake but for the benefits it can bring to teachers and learners, and Becta has a key role to play. I'm really looking forward to working with the department, teachers, head teachers and industry."
Becta chief executive, Owen Lynch, welcomed the appointment and said in a statement: "Andrew Pinder's appointment is excellent news for Becta and the educational ICT agenda.
"Andrew clearly has a wealth of experience and skills that are highly relevant to Becta's critical role in the delivery of the government's education plans and its e-strategy for education."
Comments
There is 1 comment. Join the discussion
1. Alistair Thomas
I don't know what the e-envoy was supposed to do and to be fair, a lot of local and central government has been put on the web where we can see it (or at least we think we can).
I do know that a lot of huge government-funded IT cock-ups happened during this guy's tenure. Is this another example of a government Teflon Man moving from brief to brief without accountability?
From their poorly-founded projections for use of open source in 40,000 schools (based on a sample of 30-45 schools - differently funded, different demographics, different ...everything) - what BECTA badly needs is someone to inject large enterprise thinking. Someone who can think on a big enough scale to get the sort of efficiencies in terms of procurement and support that should be possible across 40000 sites with similar goals and needs.
Does this guy have the credentials?