Nearly 1 million students will find themselves out of school in New Zealand during a national COVID-19 lockdown. While this can in turn put families, schools and teachers under immense pressure to ensure that students continue to learn, over the past 18 months Kiwi teachers and students have greatly accelerated their digital skills. Whether the ‘classroom’ is in-person, virtual or a hybrid of the two, building educators and students capacity and equal access to digital skills education has been central to the partnerships Google has developed throughout New Zealand.
That’s why today we’re pleased to announce the continuation and evolution of our agreement with the Ministry of Education. Since 2018 we’ve provided all state and state-integrated schools across New Zealand with Ministry-funded Chrome Education Upgrades to manage new and existing unmanaged Chromebooks. Now, in addition, the Chrome Education Upgrade will be available to schools via our distribution partner Synnex NZ, allowing schools to also upgrade their Google Workspace for Education Fundamentals (the free for Education edition - previously called G Suite for Education) to Google Workspace for Education Plus.
Google Workspace for Education Plus gives schools access to enterprise level teaching and learning, reporting and security tools. This comprehensive edition includes all the enhanced security features and tools from Education Standard, the Teaching and Learning Upgrade, and more to ensure your school has the best educational tools available.
Schools can harness the power of enhanced teaching and learning tools like secure Breakout rooms in Google Meet, Originality checkers in Google classroom and the ability to livestream important school events to the community wherever they are. Kura can customise and personalise Big Query data exports of their student engagement to help support their student learning journeys.
The Chrome Education upgrade was developed to make device management in schools a breeze, so that teachers and students can focus on what’s most important—teaching and learning. Equipped with the Chrome Education upgrade, schools can utilise essential education features to better support the many ways Chromebooks - the number one device in New Zealand schools - are used in the classroom.
Stuart Wakefield, the Ministry of Education’s Chief Digital Officer said, “the Ministry of Education is pleased to be able to renew and extend its existing agreement with Google through to 30 June 2024 covering Chrome Education Upgrade and Google Workspace for Education Plus for all state and state-integrated schools and kura in New Zealand.
The addition of Google Workspace for Education to the agreement supports the rapidly growing usage of online learning accelerated by COVID lockdowns and provides us with the benefit of advanced features in areas of security, integration and collaboration.”
The introduction of Chrome Education Upgrade Licences with Workspace for Education, now provides schools with an advanced set of Google Education tools and services that are tailored for Schools, Clusters and homeschools to collaborate, streamline instruction, and keep learning safe and secure.
Our team is working to make digital tools easier and more helpful for everyone and we hope this agreement enables even more educators and students around New Zealand to access and make the most of their digital learning.
