Mr Ross Kennedy, Principal, College Street Normal School

"…we opted for Equico. Their range of options, competitive rates and above all their customer service and efficiency was a real feature. Our fully warranted three year leasing contract with Equico means that we are now tracking more quickly toward our preferred ICT position."

Up until 2008 College Street Normal School had taken quite a conservative approach to the integration of ICT. The upgrading of the school's ICT simply wasn't a priority. The focus was on building teacher capacity in the teaching of literacy and numeracy.

Chanelling the school's resources and teacher effort into these areas certainly made a significant difference. The quality of classroom instruction and pupil achievement in literacy and numeracy rose appreciably. The downside was that in the meantime the 8 year old school ICT system had become grossly inadequate. The lack of an ICT long term development plan meant that what had initially been a state of the are system had quickly become antiquated and frustrating for teachers. The one online computer per classroom and a single computer suite of 160 computers just wasn't cutting the mustard for a school of 600 pupils.

A viable solution wasn't immediately obvious. Our three year ICT development plan identified what the staff considered to be the basic necessitates, such as a minimum of five or six on-line computers per classroom, a digital projector in every second room and two or three interactive whiteboards per syndicate. It quickly became obvious that purchasing to own this equipment was well beyond our capability.

It was at this point that we started seriously investigating the easing option and after communicating with a number of ICT finance companies we opted for Equico. Their range of options, competitive rates and above all their customer service and efficiency was a real feature, Our fully warranted three year leasing contract with Equico means that we are now tracking more quickly toward our preferred ICT position. Quite simply, through our involvement with Equico, we have quickly turned what was a deficit situation into a positive.