The Ministry of Education has delayed putting a contract out for tender to replace the pricey provincial student enrollment software called BCeSIS.
The ministry had planned on putting the contract out for tender this fall.
But now Education Minister Don McRae says that won’t happen, until the spring of 2013.
McRae says he is also looking for something a little cheaper, than the $ 89 million pricetag for BCeSIS.
“The world is changing and so is technology so I think we are at a place where we can actually get a program that will have better access for teachers and allow, when students go from one district to another, that there information flows with them seamlessly. But right now what we really want to do is use our stakeholder groups whether it is a teacher, a principal, can they give us feedback as to what would make a great program for them.”
McRae says new software will now be phased in by September 2014.
“Starting the transition period and it will be by 2015 it should be on province wide usage.”
When asked if school districts would still have to pay into the new software, like they do with BCeSIS, McRae says “I am not going to guess where we are going to involve going forward what I do want to know is if there is mistakes in the new program or are there things the districts have a real concern about that they are sharing that information with the ministry that we make sure that we get the best possible program out there.”
The province decided to scrap BCeSIS after a 2011 review determined the software was falling short of meeting the needs of educators.
The problem plagued software crashed province wide causing widespread frustrations in the beginning of the 2010 scool year.
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