Meeting Schooling Needs and Giving The Next Generation Tools For The Future

Schools have unique technology needs, regardless of whether it’s a primary school right through to tertiary institution. For Jason Jarrett, the CEO of Trusted Business Solutions, it is a vertical that he has long been passionate about supporting.

“It’s important that students are able to experience a system that prepares them for work,” Jarrett said. “We have always worked to build environments that are similar to what students will experience a few years down the track when they enter the workforce, while also keeping them safe and facilitating their education.”

“At the same time, providing the infrastructure for schools is a challenge. Our largest client, Canterbury College, for example, has some 2,000 students. These environments have very large client lists - the students - and the demographics can vary widely in age. To deliver a high-speed solution that also means classes aren’t being held up by technology is a holy grail challenge.”

Understanding the technology challenges schools face requires a specialised understanding of how they operate. It’s a vertical that doesn’t benefit much from 'standard' technology solutions. However having worked as the IT Manager of Livingstone Christian College for two years, Jarrett has a deep understanding of these challenges and the know-how to engage with a school on its own terms to develop solutions. Having a close partnership with Arrow for many years, Trusted Business Solutions has also been able to develop and deploy advanced technology solutions quickly, efficiently, and on budget.

“Arrow has a great support team, with fantastic pre-sales assistance and in-house expertise, which helps us a great deal in delivering solutions,” Jarrett commented.

Looking forward, Jarrett sees two critical opportunities for technology in schools that will make the experience even better for students and teachers.

“One is virtualisation,” Jarrett said. “If we can provide VDI to staff and students, it will be a great investment by the schools in helping them to control and manage the technology environment centrally.”

“It would mean that students can either use their own devices or college devices and receive the same experience. This will be a much more flexible and future- proof solution for a college to remain current with a rapidly changing environment.”

“Secondly, we see wireless technology becoming a big deal in schools. If we provide a wireless infrastructure that can deliver high performance and reliable service, students will enjoy the flexibility to access information as they need it. This would go a long way in helping us realise that goal of giving children a similar technology environment to what they are used to, thus encouraging them to adopt such practices in their working life to come.”