30 June 2004
94/04
REGIONAL SA STUDENTS TO GET GREATER ACCESS TO
EDUCATIONAL SERVICESStudents in rural, regional and remote South Australia will soon have access to improved educational facilities through the broadband-based Regional Network Delivering Educational Services Project (RegNet).
The project is receiving $6 million in funding through the Howard Government's National Communications Fund (NCF).
RegNet is a broadband-based network linking 242 education sites in regional and rural South Australia. The project roll out was announced today by the Hon. Trish Worth, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Health and Ageing, with the SA Education Minister, Jane Lomax-Smith, in Adelaide.
It will provide schools with affordable, 24-hour broadband access, as well as the ability to upgrade bandwidth.
This means better online teaching and learning and professional development opportunities for staff, students and local regional and rural communities.
Schools participating in RegNet will be connected to the new services by December 2004 by three carriers - Telstra, AirNet and SPT. Other equipment and service providers will be used to deliver services such as routing, video conferencing and multimedia services.
RegNet will also take into consideration cultural and regional requirements in delivering services to students in remote indigenous communities and will provide access to online curriculum material for the School of the Air.
It will enable the development of national online learning strategies, including the e-Schooling initiative, the Le@rning Federation and the South Australian Curriculum Standards Accreditation framework.
RegNet forms part of the $20 million Education Telecommunications Procurement, or eduCONNECT, project managed by the South Australian Department of Education and Children's Services.
The NCF is a $50 million Howard Government program that is assisting in the rollout of infrastructure and applications to enable high-speed telecommunications networks to deliver education and health services in regional Australia.
