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Party in our domain Samuel and May Serrano were among thousands who enjoyed the Ashburton Domain’s 150th celebrations yesterday. PHOTO JOSEPH JOHNSON 301114-JJ-047
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College internet could cost $40k BY DAISY HUDSON
DAISY.H@THEGUARDIAN.CO.NZ
Mid Canterbury schools could be facing “the next Novopay”, and meeting the new programme’s basic requirements could leave Ashburton College $40,000 out of pocket. The Network for Learning (N4L) programme is an internet service provided by Spark and funded by the Ministry of Education. The Crown-owned company aims to offer more than 2500 schools across the country ul-
trafast broadband and uncapped data. However, the initiative has come under fire from a local principal, who likened the programme to the disastrous Novopay system due to what he described as hidden costs and lack of flexibility. Ashburton College principal Grant McMillan believes managing the programme would require the college to hire a new technician, which could cost between $25,000 and $40,000 per year.
He also criticised the lack of flexibility the system offered, as it could not differentiate between groups of students, meaning websites either had to be blocked for all students or none. “N4L’s a good thing, I want to be part of it, it’s just got to work for us,” he said. “Right now, we’d be going backwards.” Mr McMillan said the current system was “yet another example” of someone who had failed to look at an issue from
the school’s perspective. However, Methven Primary School principal Chris Murphy said the N4L programme was working well for his school, and the company had been in regular contact with the school throughout the entire process. “I’ve got no problem with N4L, it’s been great for us,” he said. N4L CEO John Hanna told the Guardian some schools may want to allow access to sites that other schools preferred to restrict, while others may choose
to restrict access to sites on a class-by-class basis, or even a student-by-student basis, but those decisions lay with the schools. “As the internet continues to evolve N4L will continue to adapt its services to provide schools the best tools to create a safe environment for their students,” he said. Mr Hanna said state and state-integrated and partnership schools were fully funded by the government for access to the managed network.
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