NSW schools' e-learning questioned - News - Communications

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This story was printed from ZDNet Australia.
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NSW schools' e-learning questioned

By Andrew Colley, 0
June 05, 2003
URL: http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/communications/soa/NSW-schools-e-learning-questioned/0,130061791,120275133,00.htm

The New South Wales Teachers Federation doubts that the NSW Department of Education will meet its promise to give every teacher and student in the state an e-mail address, casting doubts over the future of e-learning in the state's schools.

Former NSW Education Minister, John Watkins, announced the project would be part of the NSW Government's AU$8.1 billion 2003 Education and Training budget in June 2002. The former Education Minister said that the government had put aside AU$82 million over four years toward providing Internet accounts, which would include an e-mail address and Website, to 1.33 million students and teachers.

However, a spokesperson for the NSW Teachers Federation yesterday indicated that its Internet service provision oversight committee had concerns that the government would not be able to deliver on its promise.

"There have been problems with Internet access to schools over a long period of time, which appear to have been solved but, with the promise to provide all teachers and students with an Internet address, the federation is concerned that we may find ourselves facing a situation where we're wondering they will be able to deliver on that promise," said the spokesperson.

The education advocacy group was unwilling to publicise details of its concern at this stage. However the spokesperson indicated that the Federation had raised questions as to "whether the system they've [the Department of Education] got will be able to handle the traffic being developed if everybody gets an e-mail address".

As part of the same budget commitment announced last June, the government announced a series of initiatives to improve technology available to NSW education institutions. They included an improvement of Internet connectivity in education, boosting the standard bandwidth capacity for each school from 64Kbps to 2Mbps by December 2003.

Industry observers ZDNet Australia spoke to had quietly questioned whether the 2Mbps standard was adequate.

The New South Wales Department of Education had not replied to ZDNet Australia's requests for comment by publication time.