The Department of Education has said that more than 500 public schools are to receive an additional upgrade to their classes’ bandwidth capacity.
The new upgrades are to be rolled out in the coming months, further enhancing access to online learning materials for students, teachers and other school staff.
In a statement, the Department said the additional capacity built on bandwidth upgrades already rolled out to public schools.
“That initiative has enabled a range of schools that previously had limited bandwidth to use a full range of technologies, including high-definition multimedia content, and run simultaneous online learning and activities in a number of classrooms without ‘lag’, the Department said.
“It is anticipated that the latest upgrades to public schools’ bandwidth, which are part of a one-year extension of our telecommunications contract with Telstra, will result in a 60 per cent overall increase in bandwidth where Telstra has additional capacity in its network.”
It said that with work beginning in July, both metropolitan and regional schools would benefit.
Minister for Education, Tony Buti said demand for access to online learning materials and educational information continued to grow, so it was important that these services were regularly upgraded.
“This latest agreement with Telstra provides yet another significant increase to overall bandwidth capacity for WA public schools,” Dr Buti said.
