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Local school boards getting better connected with improved internet access

Upper Grand District School Board and Wellington Catholic School Board two of first to benefit from provincial initiative

The area's two school boards will be two of the first to benefit from a $50 million investment in internet connectivity across the province.

Provincial Education Minister Mitzie Hunter was in Guelph Monday, joining Guelph MP Liz Sandals and representatives of both the Upper Grand District School Board and the Wellington Catholic School Board at Westminster Woods Public School to announce the launch.

The program will be phased in over the next four years and by the end all of the province's 5,000 schools will be included. The first wave targets 182 schools.

"It is our goal to ensure all students in Ontario are provided with the tools necessary to reach their full potential," said Hunter. "We have to make sure that no school board and no student is left behind."

It will see improved fibre optic infrastructure, improved network capacity and ensure that schools meet the global target of one megabit per second/per student.

The two Wellington County school boards are part of the first wave of the program, which will improve internet accessibility and capability at 100 schools in their jurisdiction, plus the Wellington Centre for Continuing Education.

Hunter said they were chosen in part because of their history and willingness of working together on projects.

"One reason that these boards were selected for the first wave is because of their willingness to work in true partnership. We really value that," Hunter said.

"This is a groundbreaking partnership. It will allow us to learn more about shared fibre infrastructure between boards and see how it can be used effectively in future phases of the project."

Schools benefiting most will be those in Northern Ontario and rural areas in other parts of the province where internet connectivity is often an issue.

"When you're here in the city it's not so hard to get the schools to hooked up to internet service, but as you go north in the county it becomes a huge challenge," Sandals said.

"You get into communities where the whole community is struggling to access internet service with any decent sort of bandwidth."

Sara Furnival librarian at Westminster Woods, said virtual every one of the roughly 630 students use the internet in some educational capacity.

Furnival said the province's investment in improving broadband access is huge.

"We use the internet all the time and we have had lots of issues with it," she said.

"We're learning to code and some of the platforms for coding use video tutorials and so it's difficult to access the video tutorials when the internet isn't strong," she said, giving an example of issues that can arise.

"It's a necessary thing. Even our Kindergarten students are using iPad apps that support their learning."

The improvements in Wellington County schools will be in place for the 2017-18 school year.


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Tony Saxon

About the Author: Tony Saxon

Tony Saxon has had a rich and varied 30 year career as a journalist, an award winning correspondent, columnist, reporter, feature writer and photographer.
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