back to article 600 school sysadmins sacked in New South Wales

The Department of Education and Communities (DEC) in the Australian state of New South Wales has chosen not to continue funding a program that paid for sysadmins in many schools. Funding for the sysadmins was initially made available under the Federal “Digital Education Revolution” (DER) program initiated by the Rudd …

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  1. Shadow Systems

    That sounds like American politics...

    One year hand out laptops & tablets & all sorts of delightfull toys, then the next year kill all the funding to support any of it.

    I volunteered at my son's 6th Grade school as their "Computer Guy" and had to spend *my own* money to get their "Computer Lab" (a bunch of tables with computers on them, huddling in their Library) up to speed. Packard Bell's with 1st generation Pentiums, 4Megs of RAM, 1Gb HD's, interconnected via 10-Base-T. Out of all the machines in the lab, *three* of them worked, but would overheat so fast it made them pointless to turn on. Disassemble them all, clean out, max out the Ram in each, install Ethernet LAN instead, and reimage with Win XP instead of 95a. Finally get all the systems up & running, locked down so they can access only the specific sites approved by the Principle, and spend the rest of my time "putting out fires" so to speak.

    The next year my son moved to a new school, and I landed a full time job too far away to permit me to come back on my lunch hour to remain as their Computer Guy. The District had the money to buy the school all those systems with a promise to support them in the future, but then the funding vanished & so did the promised support. If it weren't for me volunteering to do it for free, I'm certain those machines would still be gathering dust & the occasional fingerprints, because the school didn't have the budget to afford such luxuries as a Computer Support Tech of their own.

    Fast forward to last year. I heard that the Computer Guy whom volunteered after me managed to get Intel to cough up all new machines for the school, replacing the ones in the Lab as well as adding ones to each & every classroom. Great! Except he, too, was a volunteer & they couldn't afford to pay to retain him, so the end of the school year was the end of their free support. Those machines have essentially gone the way of those original Packard Bell's I'd supported all those years ago. No money to pay for support means that when they crash, that's it. Nobody at the school is Tech Savvy enough to fix them, they can't afford to get them fixed, and the District parrots "There's no money in the budget" line every time...

    All while the School District SuperAttendant takes District-paid-for "fact finding tours" to tropical locations to ascertain how to better outfit the schools under their control. *Spits in disgust*

    So NSW handing out all that shiny kit back in '07, then killing off the funding to support it a decade later? Sounds like American PolitiShit to me. =-(

    1. LaeMing

      Ah, the ol' "fact-finding mission to the Bahamas."

      Sir Humphrey Appleby would be so proud.

    2. I. Aproveofitspendingonspecificprojects

      Re: That sounds like you never heard of damn small linux

      Any reason you put XP on P1s?

      Or was it just ignorance?

      Either they get to learn to be just as ignorant or they don't get... oh wait...

      Let me rephrase that...

      1. Stevie

        Re: That sounds like you never heard of damn small linux

        "Any reason you put XP on P1s?

        Or was it just ignorance?"

        I suspect the answer to your question is contained in the manner of its asking.

        To be explicit, since you read awfully like one of those people who can smell fifteen separate flavors of Linux at twenty feet but cannot muster the acumen to decipher normal social interaction and subtext: The reason may have had something to do with not having to have conversations with gits.

    3. Fluffy Bunny
      FAIL

      Re: That sounds like American politics...

      No, that's state politics, where nothing wothwhile can be done unless you can get the Federal Government to pay for it.

      Consider the Pacific Highway. Decades later, still killing people because the state won't fix anything they can make somebody else pay for.

      1. dan1980

        Re: That sounds like American politics...

        "Consider the Pacific Highway. Decades later, still killing people because the state won't fix anything they can make somebody else pay for."

        More that they won't fix (or do) anything they want to or think they can get somebody else to pay for.

        Whether that somebody else actually does pay or not doesn't seem to change their thinking.

    4. david bates

      Re: That sounds like American politics...

      That always strikes me as bizzare..that in a school full of TEACHERS, who, one would hope, all have at least average intelligence and a love of learning they cannot organise themselves to the point where they can take over the day-to-day maintenance of a handful of PCs.

      Swapping out hardware is NOT rocket science. Re-imaging a HD is easy (assuming the Computer Guy ceated the image etc).

      In this day and age even primary school teachers should be capable of doing the routine stuff.

      1. Diogenes
        Stop

        Re: That sounds like American politics...

        Funny I don't see managing computers anywhere in the Australian Teaching Standards. Honestly most teachers have no interest in IT at all - except as a very unreliable tool. I drive my car, but I have no interest in how it works or what to do if it breaks other than call the NRMA.

        Imagine this scenario -30 students in class - 30 computers - teacher busily demonstrating something (lets say how to format a bibliography) - "Sir(or miss) my f****** computer has just f******** died" "Try restarting it" "Nup f***er says something about not finding the operating system" - What happens now? 1. Teacher whips out a spare hard drive, and spends 5 minutes replacing the drive whilst the class descends into chaos" or 2 "Watch over somebody else's shoulder" continues lesson, bell rings teacher hurries off to next class forgetting all about faulty hd.

        1. Goobertee

          Re: That sounds like American politics...

          >>Funny I don't see managing computers anywhere in the Australian Teaching Standards.

          Some attempts to implement don't work perfectly, either. My university in the USA created a Master of Science program in technology (I've forgotten the program name) to train teachers to to support the advanced stuff du jour and to also instruct others in using it--because it was often easier to give a teacher an extra job to do "in her/his spare time" than to hire a support person. So tech support was to be an assignment like coaching the cheerleaders or sponsoring a club or two.

          I taught courses in computer troubleshooting, networking, and some Internet topics, including web design. My predecessor did what he could to make them academically honorable courses and taught things like digital vs analog power supplies, the seven layers of networking, etc. I looked at what such a tech support person was likely to actually do--and went to my department head to get his blessing. I had the students take a computer apart down to the screws, put it back together, and show me it worked--on the first day. I showed them how to format a drive and install an operating system (Windows, Linux, whatever was handy), set up a server, and crimp an end on a CAT5 cable. Heavens, no--I never claimed I thought it was graduate-level work in the sense of what I did for my doctorate. But I had a good time, they had a good time, and some of them are still being useful for their schools.

          Alas, like many, the program was created and sent off to take care of itself. The buzzwords and hot topics change. It was like giving somebody a car and not verifying there was a source for gas money. This has been the case for university programs for decades. My lab equipment was scrounged from university surplus--which wasn't bad, as many of the schools had similar vintage and it wasn't a crisis if we broke something. And (win-win) I could have the students do the setups and troubleshooting. But there was nobody to push through updates to the program or to the courses. The web design course assumed that FrontPage (forgive me!) was already installed on the computers and it was expected that's what we'd use. (It's not where I stayed, of course.) There was a semester course in another department on making overhead transparencies. I don't know what they did over the years.

          After fifteen years or so, the program was de facto dropped--it stayed on the books, but no more students came along. It's probably still on the books and in the catalog. I hope that most of the public schools are now hiring "real" tech support and funding them.

      2. P. Lee

        Re: That sounds like American politics...

        > In this day and age even primary school teachers should be capable of doing the routine stuff.

        That may be true, but teaching is hard and very time-consuming.

        It's probably a rather unpopular viewpoint, but I suspect that if the schools don't see the value in hiring admins to keep them running, then the computers probably aren't critical to education. Keep a few for teaching computer science and a part-time bod is probably enough for teacher support.

        Books tend not to break down suddenly and last far longer than an etextbook license and need little technical admin.to keep them readable. Sure computers are nice, but do they make for wiser children?

        1. garetht t

          Re: That sounds like American politics...

          Just to provide the counter point, while books are lovely and tend not to crash, and without arguing the merits of it, you are more likely to find job adverts asking for basic computer skills rather than basic book reading skills.

          1. A A

            Re: That sounds like American politics...

            Just provide a counter-counter-point. The fact that a "job advert" is a collection of written words (book) your ability to read a book is expected.

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: That sounds like American politics...

        "...they cannot organise themselves to the point where they can take over the day-to-day maintenance of a handful of PCs."

        "In this day and age even primary school teachers should be capable of doing the routine stuff."

        You clearly know nothing about being a teacher then. They are intelligent and capable enough to do these things but there simply isn't time or inclination. In my work week, I face-to-face teach for 30 hours. Then there's the obligatory lunchtime duty, detentions and write ups for the permanent record. Marking, assessment creation, lesson plans, reports, parent-teacher interviews, NAPLAN prep and a million other things. After my 42 hours for the week (12 from home) Why would I want to take on the computers too for no extra money?

        And just to cut you off about the "extra holidays each year" we now have to attend a mandatory 4 weeks training to maintain salaries. So do the maths. 4 hours per week more than you for 40 weeks a year, then 4 weeks seminars. All of a sudden it's not such a cozy job is it?

        And I would not think that 400 desktops (200 Lenovo, 200 Apple) and 800 laptops - with 2 or 3 different generations of tech - would be considered a "handful". Let alone the exotic stuff like the short throw projectors mounted to the interactive whiteboards. Nothing common about that set up.

    5. Grifter

      Re: That sounds like American politics...

      Why not get a group of the students themselves to maintain the computers, there'd be some who'd thrive with a bit of added responsibility even if the chore is crap.

  2. TReko
    Devil

    Computers are Evil

    Luckily the Aussie government has allocated a cool $250 Million for school chaplains to console the wicked.

    1. Mark 65

      Re: Computers are Evil

      Maybe they could be Chaplain/Admins? Kind of like DevOps but offering spiritual guidance delivered via the command line.

  3. DownUndaRob

    If they didnt exist in the 1950s...

    Well thats the problem with this federal government today, it seems that they are still thinking and acting like its the 1950s, and unfortunately them new fangled computer things just dont exist yet..

    1. Denarius
      Unhappy

      Re: If they didnt exist in the 1950s...

      common cliche description so no information expressed. IMHO, wrong, because it goes much further than that. Pig Iron Bob had his faults, but his governments were more progressive than the current crop of colonial crawlers. See John Ralston Sauls books on 1980s on political, economic and cultural trends. Current governments are a return to the days of absolute monarchs (hidden corporate money funding willing puppet organisations pretending to be political parties) infested with the new courtiers (spin doctors, advisers and corporate manager class)

  4. Denarius

    fads and governments

    Whenever a pollie, especially the most dangerous kind, the "charismatic" , see a fad, it is doomed to squander money, effort and create collateral damage. So it comes to pass. Lots of kids saddled with M$ indoctrination and 2 generations of obsolete OS and probably applications. Whenever glitterarty start babbling about a fad it should be mandatory major organ donation sentence for any pollie or bureaucrat to to push it with taxpayers money.

    1. Fluffy Bunny
      FAIL

      Re: fads and governments

      Well, that was K.Rudd to a tee.

  5. dan1980

    Why is it that every time a (let's face it, Conservative) government cuts funding and services, it's presented as enabling people/businesses/schools/hospitals/etc... to have more control and decide for themselves what is suitable?

    The problem with that rhetoric is that the money is no longer there.

    So, what you will get is well-off schools, who already have their own fully-staffed IT department, going along just fine, while other schools less-able to afford such support will find themselves with technology that is increasingly useless.

    Teachers are generally pretty busy and there is rarely enough time to get everything done either in or out of the classroom. If the technology doesn't work, they will do without - just as they have with many other teaching an learning aids. (Textbooks, projectors, sports equipment, etc...)

    As a poster above said - at least there will be chaplains available. That, after all, has got to be the priority in a school . . .

    1. Jason Ozolins

      The chaplains can spend their time making the teaching staff feel less depressed by the stress of their second job as unpaid, undertrained sysadmins.

      1. dan1980

        @Jason

        Too true! (About the unpaid work that is, not the consolation.)

  6. ecofeco Silver badge
    FAIL

    No tech support?

    No tech support for the classroom PCs? That is some serious stupid.

    I can guarantee the following things will happen

    - PCs turned in paperweights

    - Every known virus infection ever made (guess where it goes from there?)

    - Pirated software, thus leaving the school system open to serious lawsuits

    - Porn (what, you think kids don't know about porn? Therefore, more lawsuits)

    - and last but not least, theft and lots of it.

    Like I said, some serious stupid. Wow.

    1. Fluffy Bunny
      FAIL

      Re: No tech support?

      "some serious stupid".

      Agreed, and all of it was forseen when K.Rudd started shipping out money. What did the states do with it? They got their suppliers to put together the cheapest, shortest-sighted compromises they could. $800 for a laptop? Too expensive, make it cheaper. No networks in the schools? Get the schools to work something out. Tech support? No schools will have to do that with existing staff.

      No wonder the stuff didn't last a year.

      Another K.Ruddy failure.

      1. dan1980

        Re: No tech support?

        @Fluffy Bunny

        I think you were on the money with your comment, above, about the Pacific Highway - education, like infrastructure (and health), is an arena for the destructive dick-measuring contest of State vs Federal politics.

        Regardless of the parties holding power in the state and federal parliaments, it's always the same.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    End of the world? Hardly.

    The existing devices are all still managed, both for OS updates, software deployment and OS rebuilds until they "graduate". So while there are no TSO's, the devices themselves are still supported for a few years more. Hardware failure will be an issue, and the loss of the TSO's *will* make things incredibly difficult for the schools.

    The laptops are still locked down to stop the kids installing whatever software they want, and internet is still managed through the DEC proxy. Theft is also a fairly low issue, the devices aren't that "attractive" to thieves due to being locked down in BIOS, low spec, and the SN# are reported to Police and Pawn shops if stolen. Anyone who would have the knowledge and desire to "hack" them is not likely to be interested in a low spec device like these anyway.

    With BYOD now being the thing, at least the schools now have a full wifi network built as part of the program that the schools they can continue to make use of. This wasn't a "one year" program, it's been supplying kids with laptops every year since 2009.

    1. ecofeco Silver badge

      Re: End of the world? Hardly.

      You don't know kids very well.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    "DEC will continue to fund some sysadmins, who will occasionally be available to provide tech support"

    From my experience, I feel sorry for those who will be left alone because while on paper they will be providing 'occasional' tech support, they'll be expected to provide the level of support that was previously enjoyed, then when the realisation sets in that this level of support is impossible, people will become disillusioned and start feeling negative about the support and then, to cut a long story short, the tech support will eventually be disciplined for meeting or managing customer expectations, for letting projects fall to the wayside because they're not managing their support calls effectively (or their projects will be running late because they're focusing on support calls) the managers will get promoted or leave for wonderful new jobs where they can be heroes and the tech guys will be left languishing in a job they don't want, hated by all, but unable leave because their CVs are crap.

    Or something.

  9. Arachnoid

    Take over the day-to-day maintenance of a handful of PCs.

    They are Teachers not IT technicians of any sort,there job is to try and teach the youth of today and thats hard enough without adding other "voluntary" tasks on top of the fund raising etc they do at the moment.

    As to withdrawing funds for IT that an abysmal action and saying the schools are able to handle their own money is just an attempt to get out of a tight corner they put themselves in.Both Government and Schools know they still need an "IT guy" yet they are poles apart on exactly how this is going to occur .In the end once the system collapses it`ll be one less teachers job to make funds available I kid you not.

  10. Elmer Phud

    First Dog on the Moon

    I've been following the First Dog on the Moon cartoons in the Grauniad -- a wonderful series that has shown what the government is up to in Oz. This article comes as no surprise - especially with today's First Dog offering

    http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/cartoon/2014/jun/10/first-dog-kitten

  11. Diogenes
    Headmaster

    Not the way it works

    Contrary to the ill informed commentary above, the ALP (& not the Coalition) pulled the pin on the laptop program (it was only ever funded for 4 years) . The last of the full issued laptops supplied to students will wash out of the system next year when our current 11 leave. They are so locked down the only thing a TSO can do is reimage the drive and arrange repairs for broken bits

    Again, contrary to the ill informed commentary above, the Feds paid for the TSOs to manage the laptops - they are not supposed to, nor were never meant to manage school computers. If they did, it was out of goodwill, or the school had made an arrangement with the individual TSO - I know schools where the TSO has refused point blank to sysadmin anything other than the laptops.

    DEC is currently rolling out a program called ET4L where all school computers are managed by sysadmins in each regional office - our school has chosen not to go down this path (yet!) and our TSO does sysadmin + a whole pile of other tech related stuff for us (eg rolling out surveillance cameras, arranging installs of projectors etc etc).

    I manage my lab, the TSO manages everything else. I was offered a period allowance (ie only teach 50% of time, manage the school's tech the rest) which I refused as there is way too much NIRTS and you have class now - too bad so sad and my background is Software Dev not sysadmin.

    BYOD will be interesting - at least with the laptops(and my lab) I KNOW the characteristics and can develop resources for them. Now it will be phones, phablets, tablets, chromebooks, netbooks, and laptops (thank goodness Captivate 8 makes that a bit easier). Then there is the issue of will it be loaded with the software? Will parents understand they need to buy devices that support 5ghz as DEC will not unlock the 2.4 on the wireless (thus rendering many of the cheaper Android tablets useless) ?

    Other sleeper issues -

    1. The much delayed rollout of google apps for education (last I heard was September this year - supposedly ready to go , but awaiting a report to the minister on privacy issues) that will help with software issues (but not all)

    2. The national curriculum mandating programming training for years 7 & 8 + schools with not enough computers (or teachers able/willing to teach it) and the huge emphasis on technology in all syllabuses.

  12. Bsquared

    Laptops have book value, TSOs don't

    My perhaps naive impression from academia is that it's a lot easier to get money for infrastructure and equipment than for salaries to pay people to look after and run the equipment properly.

    $750K for a new microscope? Sure.

    $50Kp.a. for 5 years to pay the very necessary technician? Hard.

    I've concluded that buying lots of equipment (e.g. a ton of laptops for a school) leaves an asset on the books with capital value, albeit depreciating. So university or DoE beancounters can say "we own $500M worth of laptops". But money spent on salaries is evanescent (except to the poor TSOs) so holds no tangible book value.

  13. Stevie

    Bah!

    This just in: New South Wales sees record highs in computerized school grades, while similarly computerized performance metrics on Administrators show inexplicable numbers of "unacceptable" ratings.

  14. TheFatMan

    Why would they pay someone to work when apparently they have people who will take it in turns to do it for free?

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