Scottish schools hit with cost hike as free Microsoft licences end

Free 微软 Office licences negotiated by the Scottish government for school pupils are set to end at the start of August, according to the Scottish Herald. The newspaper reported that the free A1 Plus licence will no longer be available to students.

Glow, Scotland’s digital environment to support learning, has posted a notice stating that Microsoft is implementing licence changes, which means that users will no longer be able to download the desktop applications through their Glow account from 1 August 2024. The Glow website states that users will also not be able to activate products such as Word, Excel or PowerPoint desktop apps using their Glow M365 credentials.

Glow effectively provides a portal for teachers and school children that gives access to the Microsoft and Google productivity suites to support collaboration in education. In August 2023, Microsoft said it would no longer offer the free A1 education licence, which was set up in 2015. At the time, Microsoft said A1 was aimed at easing the provisioning burden for IT of moving users to the cloud.

“While the intent was to help schools with their transition, it also introduced a level of complexity leading to compliance issues for our customers, with many inadvertently becoming noncompliant,” Microsoft said.

The company said that its Microsoft 365 A3 and A5 licences are easier to assign, both addressing customer requirements and the need for a transitional programme.

With all existing Office 365 A1 Plus licences expiring on 1 August 2024, schools offering the A1 Plus licence will only have access to the online version of the Microsoft 365 product suite for free.

Responses on X (formerly Twitter) to the Scottish Herald article suggest that teachers have not been informed of the changes, and that the online version of the Microsoft suite can be a hindrance when teaching some subjects.

One X user wrote: “Whilst I appreciate many colleagues are frustrated that the online versions aren’t as good/more fiddly, there are subjects that cannot complete necessary coursework without the full version.” Subjects impacted include admin & IT, computer science and maths.

Although the article looked at the situation in Scotland, the changes being made by Microsoft on August 1st affects schools across the UK. But framework agreements are in place in Wales and England that offer schools volume licensing discounts.

Read the rest of the article here: https://easysam.co.uk/news/scottish-schools-hit-with-cost-hike-as-free-microsoft-licences-end/