Basic HTML Version
16
PRINT.IT
01732 759725
Education
In the second part of our series on printing in education, we look at how
secondary schools are using print management solutions to control costs.
As you move from primary to
secondary schools, printing
becomes a lot more corporate.
Just as in the commercial
world, there is more pressure
to monitor and control costs,
not least because older
students have more varied
requirements and more
freedom to print.
But there are major
differences with office printing,
too. According to Karen
FitzGerald, EMEA Head of
Education Solutions for HP,
students aren’t subject to the
same restraints as office workers.
“Students can be very
creative in using local printing
resources for their own
requirements, such as photo
printing, poster making and
advertising school events.
Without any cost or budget
awareness and often without
real-life experience, a student
could easily print 300 flyers for a
school play on best quality paper,
in multi-colour without having
any idea of the material costs
involved to the school,” she said.
“In the workplace, most
employees would never have
a reason to run any significant
volume of printing such as this. A
business would most likely have
some kind of standard default
requests to their employees e.g.
‘always print double sided’ or
‘always print black and white’,
which would encourage more
cost saving behaviour. Finally,
employees usually limit their
personal printing in order to
ensure they do not endanger
their positions.”
Another difference cited by
FitzGerald is that a school’s
efforts to reduce print costs
are trumped by its obligation
to create an effective learning
environment.
“Schools are principally there
to educate, so a strong emphasis
is placed on learning pedagogy
and tools which help students
to learn. Tools such as colour,
task-based worksheets, learning
outside the classroom and active
learning are all deployed in order
to help students understand
difficult principles. Printing
needs to support learning, not
simply be concerned with cost or
energy,” she said.
That said, reducing print
costs is still a priority for schools,
just as it is for commercial
organisations, as is the need to
reduce energy consumption and
carbon emissions.
Oki marketing manager
Andrew Hall said: “Education
establishments need to
make pupils aware of the
environmental impact of printing,
the energy costs and paper
wastage associated with print.
All of these are also commercial
considerations and all pupils
need to be aware of these issues
as they enter the business world.
More and more establishments
are now being run as businesses
and costs must be controlled,
which is why we are seeing an
increase in interest in managed
print services and efficient
hardware requirements. Initial
cost is no longer the only
consideration – total cost of
ownership is playing a far bigger
role now.”
Unlike primary schools, larger
secondary schools – many
with both IT and reprographics
departments – are likely to have
the print volumes, resources and
expertise to manage print more
effectively. Increasingly, this is
done under the umbrella of a
managed print service (MPS).
Hall said: “Typically we are
seeing that from secondary
school level up managed print
services are becoming far more
important than a few years ago.”
Print management
Faced with the need to provide
students with greater access
to print devices without losing
control of volumes, many
secondary schools have
introduced job accounting (with
quotas) and secure print release
based on authentication. Print
release or pull printing solutions
are usually controlled by PIN,
swipecard or biometrics and are
frequently integrated with other
services, such as access control
or catering and vending.
Implementing a system
of this nature is not always
straightforward. As Balreed
marketing director Gary Downey
explains, the process can raise
as many questions as it answers.
“I did a few seminars with a
school that had implemented
cards for kids and had given
each one a budget at the start of
every term for the exact number
of pages a person would print.
But if you are doing A-level
geography and I am doing an
A-level in technical drawing, you
will do a lot of colour pages and
I will do a lot of large format
prints. We will both do more
than someone studying maths
or chemistry. You can change
the budget by course, but that
leads on to other challenges like
children sharing cards.”
He adds: “It’s a bit like
squeezing a bag of fluid: you
squeeze down costs by making
people accountable and then
people exploit weak points by
sharing their PIN number and
cards, so you then have to close
down those loopholes too.”
One solution is to use
biometric authentication. Some
parents have misgivings about
allowing their children to be
finger-printed but, according to
Nuance sales director Simon Hill,
it is an increasingly attractive
option for schools: “As one
teacher told me, ‘Students will
lose ID cards, but they will never
lose a finger’.” Those who don’t
want to take part can always opt
out and use a PIN instead.
For Pauric Surlis, public
sector sales manager at
Kyocera, implementing a print
management solution that
enables students and staff
to pull print jobs down from a
server is an important first step
to lower print costs.
“The first saving any
organisation can make is to stop
producing those unwanted prints.
Pull print achieves it. A first
generation MPS delivers savings
of 20-30% simply by ensuring
that documents aren’t printed. In
a classroom environment it’s no
different. The document is a text
container that’s updated all the
Continued...
Andrew Hall,
Marketing Manager, Oki
Printing in Education
Part Two: Secondary Schools