Need Help with QR Enrollment for Multiple Devices in Educational Environment – Is External MDM Required?

Hi everyone,
I'm managing a large number of Android tablets in an educational environment. I'm trying to enroll the devices using Android Enterprise with QR code enrollment, but I'm having trouble getting the QR method to appear. So far, only Zero-Touch shows as an option, but most of our devices were not purchased through Zero-Touch resellers, so we can't use that method.

My main question is:

Is it strictly necessary to use an external MDM (like Miradore, Intune, etc.) to generate the QR code, or is there a way to create and use it directly from the Google Admin console or natively through Android Enterprise?

We want to deploy the tablets efficiently and avoid entering accounts manually. Ideally, each device would automatically enroll with our managed Google Play account by scanning a QR code after a factory reset. This is especially important in a school context, where we have many students and limited time for configuration.

We are already registered in Google Workspace, and the tablets are in a dedicated organizational unit for students. The admin account is managed, and we are using the Android Enterprise platform linked to our domain.

For reference, here are two YouTube videos showing the configuration steps I followed (which reflect our current setup):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jI-C_y1u8jE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h__pvfp559Q

Any advice or clarification would be greatly appreciated. Especially if there’s a native way to enable QR enrollment without needing a full external MDM platform.

Thanks in advance!