With B.C. schools back in session, pressure is mounting on Education Minister George Abbott to release the $250,000 report that his ministry commissioned Gartner Inc. to produce to advise him on the problem-plagued British Columbia Enterprise Student Information System (BCESIS).
The system’s provider, Pearson Education Inc., plans to stop servicing what it considers an “antiquated” application and has offered Abbott free licences and discounted services to migrate to what it considers a superior system.
(See “Education ministry’s $100 million school software investment scores failing grade from B.C.’s teachers” – issue 1041; September 6-12)
B.C.’s Ministry of Education and school districts have spent more than $100 million for the BCESIS software, which tracks personal student information. It has been plagued with problems since Day 1.
“I’ve requested to see the report,” New Democratic Party (NDP) education critic Robin Austin said.
“Abbott said that he would make it public once he gets it. Generally, when governments receive something like that and they don’t make it public as quickly as one would like, that suggests that there’s probably not good news in it.”
Abbott told the legislature in May his ministry has spent $89.1 million on BCESIS since school boards started rolling out the software in 2005 to keep track of information such as:
- student grades;
- attendance;
- allergies;
- native language;
- parent contact information; and
- other personal data.
That expense does not include what Austin estimates to be tens of millions of dollars that school boards have also spent to train teachers to use the system and train computer administrators to troubleshoot the persistent problems.
Glen Korstrom
Twitter: GlenKorstrom