unfortunately the ubiquitious 'health and safety' is what's stopping many schools getting 3d printers.

It has to be safe, it can't have any emissions, there can't be any chance for them to touch a hot part.

That limits what the school can use to a small selection. This is further reduced by having to have the machine certified and come with certain guarentees that it's kid safe, won't ever catch fire and basically has totally unrealistic expectations.

When I was scjool, we used liquid mercury in physcis experiments (I used to steal it and play with it at home).
We did sodium experiments with actual sodium in the room.

Nobody ever got hurt and we learnt a lot more.

Given how the real world actually functions - I'm not sure that the extreme coddling and lack of hands on experience, kids currently have is good for them.

I often see the phrase used: 'they promised us flying cars by 2000'.
And flying cars we have, they were a reality before 2000. But legislation and regulations have grounded them - probably permamently.

We live in a very peculiar age. Where many of the science fiction ideas on earlier years are solid reality, but many are subject to so many stupid rules and regulations that nobody can use them.

And at the moment that seems to be very much the case with 3d printers and schools.