Chrome OS is taking over the education market with affordable, simple hardware backed by cloud management capabilities. One country where Chromebooks are particularly prevalent is New Zealand, where its Ministry of Education signed a deal with Google to provide all schools access to Chrome Education management tools.

Last year, Google noted that Chromebooks “are the number one device used in New Zealand schools.” With a population of approximately 5 million people, Google and New Zealand Ministry of Education announced today that Chrome Education licenses will be available for all state and state-integrated schools.

Starting on November 1, as part of an agreement with Google and the New Zealand Ministry of Education, all state and state-integrated schools across New Zealand will be able to start claiming Ministry-funded Chrome Education licenses to manage new and existing unmanaged Chromebooks. The Chrome Education license 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.

Staring next month, schools will be able to claim the license in order to simultaneously configure settings and enforce over 200 policies for a fleet of Chrome OS devices. This includes school-owned units, leases, and Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) Chromebooks.

Administrators can update anywhere between 100 devices to 100,000 with one click, while custom bookmarks, apps, and extensions can be loaded at boot. Meanwhile, a recently added feature allows schools to only set these policies during certain hours, so that Chromebooks can be used as regular, fully personal devices at home. Other features include:

push apps to student devices so they have the right apps they need

customise the user experience by automatically loading websites on start-up, adding custom bookmarks and blocking distractions

schedule updates on Chromebooks

prevent anyone from un-enrolling their managed Chromebook from the school’s domain, minimising lost and stolen devices

manage student sign-in to prioritise educational use of devices during school hours.

The license goes into effect on November 1, 2018 and runs until June 30, 2021.

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