The Government has announced funding of $500,000 that will see over 40 more schools across the country receive wireless technology.

The funding is part of the Ministry of Education's Wireless School Network Upgrade Project.

“Earlier this year, I announced the completion of the School Network Upgrade Project (SNUP), which has provided state and state-integrated schools with upgraded core on-site infrastructure such as cabling and switching, to enable them to access high-quality internet for learning,” says Associate Education Minister Nikki Kay.

“The advent of wireless technology saw this technology automatically included as part of SNUP, for over 1,200 schools which received their upgrade from June 2013 on,” she explains.

“The WSNUP project was set up in late 2014 to retrofit wireless technology to a number of schools that had already received a core digital infrastructure upgrade, prior to wireless technology being included in SNUP. Under WSNUP, work is already well advanced towards retrofitting wireless technology to over 430 schools, and I'm pleased that today's announcement will see over 40 more schools also receive wireless upgrades,” says Kaye.

“This means more students and teachers around the country will be able to enjoy the benefits of being more mobile with their devices while at school,” she adds.

Kaye says the Ministry of Education will contact schools to offer them access to the upgrade.

“Evidence suggests that widespread and mobile access to the internet will lead to new and significant opportunities for students, parents and teachers,” she says.

“The rollout of wireless connections is a vital step towards delivering these opportunities, enabling more young New Zealanders to learn anytime and anywhere.

“Thanks to the SNUP and WSNUP projects, schools are being provided with state-of-the-art infrastructure so they can make full use of ultrafast broadband in the classroom, along with Crown-funded, uncapped data via the N4L Managed Network,” says Kaye.

“Over 95% of schools are now connected to the Managed Network, which also offers services such as web filtering, network security and helpdesk support.

“The Government has invested hundreds of millions of dollars in these programmes to ensure young New Zealanders have some of the best infrastructure and connectivity anywhere in the world,” she adds.