Feature
Digital connectivity and education in Glasgow
T
he digital transformation of the Glasgow region is one of the city’s most compelling selling points – a vital part of the 21st century narrative
about Scotland's biggest city. CGI, one of the largest IT and
consulting services providers in the world and a Gold Partner of Glasgow Chamber of Commerce, is at the forefront of this change, helping increase the digital connectivity and accessibility for all citizens, but particularly young people. With the city positioning itself as one
of the leading tech hubs of Europe, keen to attract global players, the provision of the latest technology in school classrooms is an indication of the city’s ambition. Indeed it is one of the biggest digital education roll-outs by a local or regional authority anywhere in the world. CGI and Glasgow City Council have a
seven-year multi-tiered contract worth £211 million in place to increase digital connectivity for citizens, upgrading to superfast wi-fi and moving the data and secure cloud centre into facilities in Bellshill to deliver better outcomes. As one of CGI’s ten key global civic projects, a major educational transformation will be delivered which will see more than 52,000 iPads given to young people and their teachers by mid-2021. The roll-out to Glasgow teachers began in October 2018 with training on how to use the new system and, in January 2019, the first pupils received their iPads. The first school was St Thomas Aquinas in the west end of the city, which was the pilot school. Here, the initial delight at the shiny new toys soon gave way to a realisation that the system had powerful and sustainable learning benefits for both student and teacher. By the start of 2020, 13,000 iPads had already been given out to Glasgow pupils with 3,000 to teachers. “This is across a number of learning
communities in the Glasgow region. We are working with the client on a schedule for the continuing roll-out of this very significant investment in
We are absolutely world-leading in this initiative. It’s phenomenal what Glasgow City Council is putting into the futures of these young people”
educational transformation which will enhance the opportunities of learning,” said Lindsay McGranaghan, who is the Scottish Business Unit Leader for CGI, based in Glasgow. While CGI employs over 78,000
professionals around the globe, its expansion in Scotland has been significant and it has recently moved to a new office in central Glasgow. The company operates the ‘Metro model’ where staff – called members – have share-options in the business, and live and work in the local communities where they operate, not in remote call centres. There are different types of iPad
and different ratios of technology, with Primary 1 to Primary 5 pupils getting one iPad between every five children, and one per pupil from Primary 6 through to the end of Secondary School, across all Glasgow schools. “The responses have been
interesting because I think initially this was seen as a new shiny iPad. We need to be careful because it is a much broader story than just a piece of kit. The benefits we can see from a teaching workload and efficiency perspective are starting to come through now.” As an example, a web
service has been created to monitor and track Curriculum for Excellence, Scotland’s national curriculum for schools.
“This significantly reduces the time it
takes teachers to produce school reports, which means that more time can be used for more higher-value teaching, rather than administrative work.” The classroom system is integrated
into Apple TVs and controlled by a CGI enterprise-level system which is applied to Classroom Manager, an Apple product, so the teacher can be assured that the student is working on the correct project at the right level, rather than using it for other purposes. Classroom Manager gives the teachers better levels of oversight, safety and security and can view a whole class from a single screen. Previously, the use of iPads in
Glasgow schools was piecemeal and depended on individual schools and their level of resources, now it offers a consistent level of technology. CGI, which selected Apple as the most appropriate technology for educational transformation, won a major contract which has also allowed the transfer of 296 Glasgow Council IT staff to the Canadian-headquartered company. In the first 18 months, £300,000 was spent on retraining this key Scottish resource. There has also been a transformation of the WAN (wide area network) in terms of ultra-fast wi-fi connectivity in schools, libraries and
Lindsay McGranaghan, Business Unit Leader, CGI
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www.glasgowchamberofcommerce.com
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