Promethean boosted by major US contract win

EDUCATION technology specialist Promethean World has landed a major contract in the US.

The Blackburn-based group has been selected, after a competitive process, to be exclusive provider of interactive display systems to 10,000 classrooms by Miami-Dade County Public Schools.

Miami-Dade, which is the fourth largest school district in the US has picked the company’s ActivBoard Touch system powered by its ActivInspire software. Delivery is currently expected to be completed by the end of the third quarter this year.

Promethean will also implement an 18-month professional development programme, to assist Miami-Dade teachers in uniting their curricula and teaching styles with its technology.

Miami-Dade, which has a student population of around 350,000, is in the midst of a major digital transformation programme and Promethean will supply its systems to 10,000 classrooms currently without interactive display capability.

Jim Marshall, chief executive of Promethean said:”We are delighted to have been selected by Miami-Dade and are proud to work with them to help transform learning in their classrooms.

“We have the opportunity to empower Miami-Dade teachers with a new way to motivate and engage students through collaborative digital learning activities in the classroom and we are excited by this.”

Mr Marshall said the deal could be a sign that budget-holders in the US, who have reined-in spending in recent years, may be loosening the purse strings: “The Miami-Dade award is significant, both because it is one of the largest classroom implementations of interactive display systems in our history and because it may be one of the signs that the pressures on education technology budgets in the US are beginning to ease.

“It does not lead us to alter our current view of our financial prospects for this year, and we expect the marketplace to remain tough, but we do take it as a very positive endorsement of the quality of Promethean’s solutions.”