Colour printing in schools has always been a contentious issue. Those advocating for its use, citing benefits to learning inside and outside the classroom, are often side-lined by those who claim it wastes an already tight budget. As recently as 2019, the UK government issued schools with guidelines on how to manage their finances. One of the suggestions is to remove colour printing entirely across the board. According to Lord Agnew, removing colour printing can “make a difference to something that is not painful.” In some cases, school IT administrators have removed the colour tab completely from their hardware in order to carry out this edict.
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With rising energy costs—one school interviewed stated their electricity bill rose from £10,000 per annum to £100,000 this year—and with supply procurement costs rising against a shrinking per-student budget, perhaps this recommendation is necessary. However, the benefits colour printing brings to students of all ages far outweigh the careless advice that cutting out colour printing entirely will save school finances. Research has shown that when schools restrict printing, more printing is done at home or elsewhere, while persistent printing is simply shifted to another outlet.
The Benefits of Colour Printing Are Proven
Studies have long shown that, generally speaking, student engagement with materials is better with colour than with the black and white equivalent. Research conducted by the Association for Talent Development a few years ago reported that information is sent from the colour centre of the brain to the areas responsible for detecting motion, shapes, edges, and transitions. Even colour blindness did not hinder the greater engagement with colour charts and graphs in the classroom. Aside from the fact that colour piques attention and interest when a student engages with the material, it helps form a link with the digital equivalent. If a student views material digitally with the vibrant colours intact, the printed version lacks the same immediacy if presented in mono, particularly in relation to diagram-heavy STEM subjects.
There are also advantages for students with disabilities and educational needs. Students with dyslexia and ADHA, in particular, benefit from the use of colour to make materials more accessible and increase long-term retention of information. Gradients help to increase literacy accuracy in children with dyslexia, and more generally, learners who struggle to concentrate for long periods of time may find that colour enables them to stay focused on their academic task.
What Can Schools Do?
- Consider a managed print services (MPS) contract. If one is not already in place, choosing an MPS contract through a dealer or directly with an OEM will help keep tight reigns on printing budgets, usage, and productivity. With relevant data to hand, adjustments to the number of printers available, unnecessary printing, and flexible hardware pricing enables savings to be made that can counter the cost of colour printing. Contracts also enable onsite printing setup to evolve when needs change, making sure the budget is spent in the most efficient way possible.
- Consider switching technology. If you already have a dealer contract or MPS plan in place, think about switching to alternative technology that is more energy efficient. Colour printing is notoriously expensive in terms of energy usage, so why not consider devices specifically designed to save energy whilst producing color output?
- Identify persistent print needs across the board. Some print needs are inevitable, regardless of digitization. Identify which department has persistent print needs and whether budget can be moved from one department to another depending on the greater need.
- Consider switching to devices that use refillable toner and ink cartridges. Very often, dealer and OEM-lead MPS plans will offer discounts on refillable toner and ink cartridges. Saving money on high turn-over consumables such as ink and toner will enable budget to be spent on color printing where it is needed most. Refillable toner and ink cartridges are also more efficient, helping to cut down on waste.
Keypoint Intelligence Opinion
Is cracking down on colour printing in schools the right advice for governments to give? No. The benefits of colour printing on student learning and engagement far outweigh the financial benefits. It cannot be denied that times are tough for schools and budget cuts are oftentimes made to fund the essentials. However, making strategic choices in terms of hardware and consumable procurement, as well as using data to examine where budget could be reassigned, could help save the need to fully eradicate the use of colour printing in schools.
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