What’s new with the Microsoft schools’ agreement? Microsoft New Zealand’s renewed agreement with the Ministry of Education provides schools with more than just three more years of free access to its core software. The new deal also offers enhanced security features that will boost cybersecurity and make you, your students and your school even more digitally safe and secure. As you may know, the schools’ agreement between Microsoft New Zealand and the Ministry of Education has been renewed for three years, coming into effect on 1 January, 2022, and running until 31 December, 2024. Officially titled the Microsoft Enrolment for Education Services (EES) Agreement, a key component is the continuing free access for students and staff at all state schools, state-integrated schools and kura kuapapa to Microsoft’s suite of powerful learning tools. What are known as A3 licences, this makes available at no cost some of the company’s core software, such as Microsoft 365 (including Teams, OneNote and Forms), Minecraft: Education Edition, and Windows 10 and above, that allow teachers to build a collaborative, hybrid classroom. What you may not know, however, is that there are several significant additions to the overall deal, notably a new focus on boosting cybersecurity and making schools even more safe and secure. Emma Barrett, Public Sector Director at Microsoft New Zealand, said she was delighted to be renewing Microsoft’s relationship with the MoE and empowering schools to provide safe, trusted online learning.
“This agreement paves the way for schools in the country to enjoy worldclass, enterprise-level security on every device,” she said.
devices that are utilising A3 licences,” added Barrett. “This aligns and empowers the Ministry’s strategy for safer and more secure learning environments.”
“As more schools and kura across Aotearoa embrace secure cloud platforms and new technologies, such as cloud telephony, over the next few years, that’s going to give educators even more confidence to innovate in the digital space. That’s great news for teachers, for students, and for the future of New Zealand.”
M365 A5 Licences
Intensive and advanced What this means is that schools who have already adopted cloud security and protection technologies can now apply for fully funded A5 licences that provide more intensive security management and advanced compliance on all school-owned devices, with additional analytics tools (through Power BI). The A5 licences include Microsoft Defender for Endpoint, a cloud-based solution designed to help school networks prevent, detect, investigate and respond to advanced threats. “The agreement now includes a number of M365 A5 licences and Defender for Endpoint per year for all school-owned
This offers everything in A3, but with more intensive security management, additional analytics tools (through Power BI), and advanced compliance. A5 makes security a priority with Microsoft Defender for Endpoint, a cloud-based solution that helps protect your school identities from multiple types of advanced targeted cyberattacks.
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint
This is a product feature of A5 and provides an enterprise endpoint security platform designed to help school networks prevent, detect, investigate, and respond to advanced threats. For those users that have A3, the Ministry of Education is also licensing them with Microsoft Defender for Endpoint. “Schools and kura who use Microsoft software are encouraged to take advantage of these licences, in particular to avail themselves of the enhanced security benefits available from the A5 licence option and Defender for Endpoint,” wrote Stuart Wakefield, the Ministry of Education’s Chief Digital Officer. While the renewed deal doesn’t come into effect until next year, the Defender for Endpoint security features have already been made available to eligible schools.
About Power BI
This is an analytics package for making sense of all your data sources. The collection of software services and apps helps users to easily collect, manage and process information and turn it into intelligible insights, reports and visualisations. More at powerbi.microsoft.com
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INTERFACE 109 NOVEMBER 21
