Feds to form education IT advice panel

The Federal Department of Education has announced it will form an expert technical panel to provide advice on ways to better integrate IT and communications technology into education.

The panel could be used by the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations (DEEWR) to support "the development, implementation and evaluation of initiatives including the Digital Education Revolution (DER) and the Vocational Education Broadband Network (VEN)."

The Government has committed $2.2 billion to the digital education revolution and $80 million for the broadband network.

The revolution includes the computers for schools project. According to the DEEWR web site, to date the Federal Government has dished out funding for just under 300,000 computers in Australian schools.

"The Applied ICT in Education Panel will be required to provide expert technical advice and analysis and contribute to the development and implementation of initiatives," the department said.

"The panel may be required to assist in developing, reviewing and providing quality assurance of technical documents and reports.

"Areas of expertise relevant to education include infrastructure, networking, e-Learning, technical standards, copyright, security and privacy."

The department said there was no guarantee that panel members would be awarded services contracts as a result of their sitting on the panel.

The panel was expected to start in April and run through until the end of June 2011.