Ultranet facing the scrap heap

Jewel Topsfield

Education Editor for The Age

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Warrnambool College teachers on the Education Department's Ultranet training day. Photo: Damian White

The disastrous $180 million Victorian school intranet could be scrapped at the end of the month prompting fears that months of student work and reports would be lost.

The four-year contract with NEC to run the troubled network has not been renewed days before it expires on June 30, with a decision yet to be reached on its future.

Victorian Education Minister Martin Dixon said the government was committed to protecting the Victorian education system from the "Ultranet debacle", which he said the Auditor-General had confirmed was "botched from conception to implementation by the former Labor government".

Mr Dixon said the Ultranet had already cost Victorian taxpayers at least $180 million – three times its original budget – despite being used by only 4 per cent of the intended 1.5 million teachers, parents and students.

"While it is unfortunate that current negotiations are now public, we will continue to work towards extracting whatever value we can for Victorian schools from this failed Labor program," Mr Dixon said.

Ian McKenzie, the principal of Alkira Secondary College – one of 18 schools to pioneer the Ultranet – said he had a teacher desperately archiving material from the Ultranet to ensure it was not lost.

"What about the student work sitting there, the teacher observations ... I'm scared what might happen to all the information on it," Mr McKenzie said.

"The blood, sweat and tears that has gone into the Ultranet and the work teachers put in – it's soul destroying. I have to face parents who took me on face value when I said: 'This is the best thing since sliced bread – every school is going to be using it in the future."

Troy Moncur, the leading ICT teacher at Nichols Point Primary, has started an online petition urging Premier Denis Napthine and Mr Dixon to save the Ultranet.

He said 52 schools now used the Ultranet to provide parents with fortnightly updates on their child's progress instead of generic outdated report cards in June and December. Four thousand reports had been published on the Ultranet in the last week alone.

"Staff are worried about the stuff they have put up – photos, comments ... if it's going to be terminated at the end of the financial year that wipes off 18 months of history of kids' work and activities. We are not sure what to do."

NEC Australia spokesman Heath Caban said he believed the Ultranet had a role to play in helping Victoria to achieve its goal of delivering world-class education. "NEC Australia is working with governments across the globe, particularly in China and the Middle East, who are interested in adopting the Ultranet," he said.

The Ultranet, promised by the former government before the 2006 state election, was designed to provide a state-wide secure network that would enable parents to view their child's timetables, school work, academic progress and attendance and teachers to share curricula.

The project was dogged from the start by inadequate planning, cost blow-outs and failed tenders. A disastrous training day in 2010, which left 42,000 teachers unable to log on when the system crashed at 9am, also delayed the rollout of the Ultranet in schools.

A scathing Victorian Auditor General's report late last year found it had failed to deliver the promised benefits and had been shunned by schools.

The audit also revealed serious "probity lapses" surrounding the tendering of the Ultranet, with the budget expected to blow out to three times what was first intended in 2006.

Victorian Auditor-General Des Pearson said it was difficult to understand how the Ultranet went ahead when the Education Department was advised the project should cease or be delayed.

He recommended the Education Department review its internal tendering, probity and financial management practices in light of the serious issues identified by the audit.

jtopsfield@theage.com.au

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68 comments so far

• • • the best thing these teachers should do in future is question what is being offered to them, instead of towing the Party Line and just saying 'it will be great'

    • strike up another fail for Labor govt.

    • "probity lapses" ? we should investigate the tender process and offer criminal charges if warranted, identify the source of incompetence and sack the perpetrators involved instead of having them waste our taxpayers money.

• • frank

  • June 19, 2013, 7:45PM

    • • • That is exactly what happened and is a big reason why it has failed. Teachers certainly did not tow the party line on this one.

• • • • Acey

      • June 20, 2013, 8:00AM

        • Hey, we all make mistakes, but Labour has taken it to a whole new level, both at a commonwealth and state level. The State Labour party's specialist skill seems to be delivery of ill conceived, rushed projects that end up massively over budget; Ultranet, Desal,Southern Cross station, and the grand daddy of them all, Myki. It takes real talent, and spectacular incompetence to fail so consistently and magnificently.

      • Slick

      • Melbourne

      • June 20, 2013, 9:03AM

        • Frank why do people like you have to continually make disparaging comments about others, especially when you don't even know what you are talking about. Right from the start teachers had major concerns about the Ultranet and fed it back to the dept. It was clunky and had a poor interface. At peak times you couldn't even get onto it. For these reasons many schools did not pursue the use of it except where they had to. Thus explaining the 4% usage. The Ultranet was driven by the IT people. Unfortunately they were often not prepared to listen to the concerns being raised. When you roll out something this large you have to have in place the infrastructure to support it and it has to be user friendly. None of that occurred.

      • AnneO

      • June 20, 2013, 10:04AM

        • I remember the day we had our training for it back in 2010. The log in took forever and I just thought the idea was a bit strange. Probably likely to be easily hacked and things messed with. I never had to formally use it, so I don't know how it would work in the everyday, real world. The fact that it was another Labor Party you-beaut-she'll-be-right-mate idea had me skeptical from the start.

      • Not teaching any more

      • June 20, 2013, 4:12PM

        • It is stupid try to hold such large number of schools under one intranet umbrella. Even the technology allows, it is not necessary to waste money and risk any potential disaster. All we need is a 5 cents bulletin doc to force each schools intranet requirements, or a standard addon application to instruct each school install and use.

        • Hopeless politicians.

      • MMJJ

      • June 21, 2013, 2:11PM

• • • Politicians waste hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars, directly from the bank of accounts of you and me, on fruitless, worse than useless projects that were poorly planned and conceived and were doomed to fail from the beginning, ignoring independent advice due to stupidity, arrogance, or to secret dealings/kickbacks personally rewarding the policy makers. We all complain about our taxes feeding the lazy bums on welfare, but there is a breathtaking waste of taxpayers money through these terrible projects. The reason is lack of accountability. Make sure any pollie responsible for authorizing any such failed projects in the face of contrary advice, gets fired and never fill a leadership role again. Suddenly we'll actually have projects that put money to good use, when their own worthless necks are on the line.

• • THQ

  • Melb

  • June 19, 2013, 7:52PM

    • • • north-south pipe, desal, myki

        • hey, it's only OUR MONEY...

• • • • pete

      • melbourne

      • June 20, 2013, 9:39AM

        • Pete it's interesting how people continually have selective memory when it comes to commenting on government wastage. Both sides of politics have created expensive debacles at our expense. Jeff Kennett has left us with an expensive energy industry that is dependent on coal fired power stations at the expense of developing greener energy sources. Peter Costello was not the greatest treasurer we ever had. He squandered Autralia's opportunity to benefit from the mining boom and develop our infrastructure for future generations. According to a UN report two of the worst periods of budget mismanagement came under Peter Costello. The reason both sides of politics get away with poor government is becuase we let them and only focus on the failures of the party we don't support.

      • AnneO

      • June 20, 2013, 10:29AM

        • @AnneO Your comparisons to the Liberal government are mind blowing. Here we have Labor tendering projects that have become complete white elephants and you say that Jeff left us with a coal dependent energy sector and that Peter Costello was a poor treasurer.

        • Firstly the La Trobe valley lies on top of one of the largest brown coal seems in the world and when Kennett came to power the state infrastructure was setup to source energy from that region, why the hell would he spend billions on developing renewable energy in an era that didn't call for it?

        • Costello was a pretty good treasurer by today's standard and how do you suggest he squandered the mining boom? By not implementing a mining tax?

      • Doug

      • June 21, 2013, 1:40PM

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