Support is growing for a national leasing scheme to provide teachers with their own laptop.

Although the Government’s Computers for Teachers scheme has helped several thousand to buy a PC, it has been dogged with difficulties and there was anger at restricting the most recent phase to key stage 3 maths teachers.

Many influential figures in education would like the Department for Education and Skills (DFES) to abandon the initiative and instead back a national scheme to provide teachers with leased laptops. Encouraging schools or local education authorities to launch their own schemes could be an alternative to a nationwide plan. This could lighten or even remove the financial burden from teachers.

Valerie Thompson, chiefexecutive of the e-Learning Foundation, said many schools and LEAs had already leased laptops for their teachers. However, she added that there was “a case for a national scheme that would take advantage of the collective purchasing power, and low credit risk, of the nation’s schools”.

According to Thompson, leasing was a more attractive option than buying machines outright, as it spread the cost over a number of years and assured teachers that their laptop would be updated regularly.

The National Governors’ Council (NGC) is another body that supports the concept. Chris Gale, its chair, said that a leasing scheme was an excellent idea and that the NGC would back any moves to establish such a scheme.

It was becoming “more and more imperative” for teachers to have their own computer, she said, a fact an increasing number of governing bodies recognised. According to Gale, many more would be willing to back an initiative for their school, but funding was often the stumbling block.

She said that the Computers for Teachers scheme had been “divisive” and that teachers continued to have an excuse not to use technology in the classroom while they did not have personal access.

Paul Kelley, head of Monkseaton Community High School and an adviser to the DFES, believed such a scheme would be received “extraordinarily well” by teachers and schools and would give ICT in education the spur it needed.

Sir Kevin Satchwell, head of Thomas Telford School, said one option could be to provide a machine to new teachers, as a further attraction to the profession, and to provide the extra support needed at the start of their careers.

It is not clear whether a leasing scheme is being seriously considered by the Government. A spokesperson said the DFES continued to take forward Labour’s manifesto commitment to give both teachers and pupils greater access to ICT, and that the third phase of the Computers for Teachers scheme was being planned.

Mike Fitton, chief executive of ABK, which leases computers and other equipment to schools, offers laptops at a cost of pound;5 a week to schools. Education action zones in Southend and south east England’s virtual zone have used the company to provide a laptop to every one of their teachers, which number more than 800.