ACT to buy another 9500 Chromebooks for schools

The ACT government will buy another 9500 Chromebook devices to ensure that every secondary school student has a personal electronic device.

The territory’s Education Directorate has approached the market to purchase devices for year 7 cohorts and year 7-12 students that have joined the public school system since the previous rollout.

More than 15,000 Acer Chromebook Spin 11 devices were purchased for 7-11 students last year, which were deployed to schools by Datacom ACT in time for the 2018 school year.

The value of the deal - while was not revealed at the time - came to just over $7.7 million.  

The latest round of Chromebooks will support the second and third years of the ACT's technology enabled learning program aimed at addressing "equity of access to technology" for public secondary school students.

The government said timing of the delivery is “critical” and will need to be deployed by 25 January 2019 in time for the start of the new school year.

The devices will be expected to have a minimum life-expectancy of three years, with an Intel Celeron dual-core or equivalent processor with at least 4GB of memory and a 11-inch screen.

The Directorate also wants at least 32GB of storage, though will settle for 16GB.

The government committed to give every high school student a personal device in the lead up to the 2016 election, and allocated more than $17 million in its 2017-187 budget to fund the rollout.