Fresh from his massive backdown/ flip flop (whatever you want to call it) on the regulatory holiday; the central element of his broadband Bill, Steven Joyce’s latest stuff up in his flawed broadband scheme means hundreds of NZ schools… err… miss out on broadband.
More than 100,000 school students from up to 470 schools have somehow fallen into between the cracks into something called Zone 3 which isn’t covered by either scheme (Hogwarts???)
Several hundred communities miss out; such as Roxburgh, Gore, Cromwell, Alexandra, Westport, Dannevirke, Huntley, Kaitohe, Kaitaia, Matamata, Morrinsville, Opotiki, Orewa, Papakura… the list goes on.
Last week, questioned in the House Steven Joyce said this:
The reality of the situation is that there was always a boundary between the ultra-fast broadband network and the rural broadband network, and it has always been the intention that schools within that geographical area would be tendered separately.
in response to this question from me:
Why is he using the $15 million that was allocated to connect the most remote schools in New Zealand to broadband, to now connect up to 108,000 New Zealand school students from up to 470 schools who were mistakenly left out of both his urban and rural broadband schemes, as identified in a report written by independent consultant Jonathan Brewer, and is this not just another almighty screw-up in his broadband scheme?
Steven Joyce is just making stuff up.
The NZ Herald reports on it here. The Ministry reckons it’s closer to 300 schools. Could they please find out? And could Steven Joyce tell us what he’s going to do about it?
And how it happened in the first place? Somebody stuffed up. Could it have been Steven Joyce?
See the list of schools here and the letter written to Steven Joyce and Anne Tolley from Internet NZ, Fed Farmers and TUANZ expressing concerns about it.
And see here and here for the reports written by Jonathan Brewer which exposed the issue. The map says it all.
Seems the broadband’s scheme’s full of cracks. Keen to know where the extra money’s going to come from to paper over these ones.
What’s next I wonder…
Building for our future needs all the support possible for tomorrows adults. It does seem that Joyce’s unwillingness to listen to advice and his secretiveness means mistakes are made. [balance deleted - keep politicians personal lives out of it - chris]
Dannevirke, already has fiber with Inspire Net, they put fiber in the ground a couple of years ago.
Are giving schools ultra high speed broadband so pupils can do school projects ? There doesnt seem to be business case for this at all from Joyce.
I think we have seen radio , then TV and finally broadband supposed become a huge benefit for schools. The one thing that does seem to work is … cough.. teachers!
In Auckland, students can do school projects on the free computers and web access in public libraries.