HP and Lenovo make their educational pitches

HP has swelled the ranks of those resellers that are part of its education programme, signing up six more partners to target primary and secondary schools across the UK.

The vendor's HP for Education initiative shared out £2.2m to institutions last year and will now be offered by Hable, Prodigy Learning, eMathsMaster, Tute, 9ine and SAMLabs, who join the 11 existing partners in the programme.

The HP scheme offers schools credits or cashback for the kit that they purchase, which can be spent on software, training and hardware upgrades.

“At HP we recognise that with tight budgets, schools have to make difficult decisions every year between buying much needed education hardware or investing in software such as education programs and training courses.” said Neil Sawyer, Education Business Director at HP.

“We want to stop schools from being forced to minimise their IT assets or forgo software purchases in order to invest in vital education technology," he added.

The other development in the educational business is a decision to extend the products included in its customised to order scheme, including the 400 series laptops.

The customised scheme started six months ago and is delivered by Westcoast, RM and XMA to make sure that both schools and higher education customers can get products that have a better fit into their organisations.

HP was not alone in using the BETT show last week to remind educational buyers of its brand and offering and Lenovo was also using the event to show-off its latest hardware range.

The vendor took the wraps off a number of laptops, which have been drop-tested and have keyboards thar are spill resistant. There was also a VR classroom kit.

Lenovo also had its own research that showed that 94% of teachers believed that virtual reality would be a benefit in the classroom, with 42% expecting it to be commonplace within the next five years.

“The research highlights that tech and specifically VR offers endless possibilities when it comes to teaching, students are no longer bound by classroom walls and teachers are no longer bound by traditional lesson plans," said Rich Henderson, director, global education solutions at Lenovo.

"It’s time to embrace this technology and give teachers the tools they need to inspire the workforce of tomorrow," he added.