Teachers were unable to log on to the $81 million Ultranet system today as the Education Department scrambled to fix the problem.
"The Ultranet network is experiencing technical difficulties and is currently unavailable," said a memo to schools.
Some teachers have reportedly been sent home, with training impossible without access to the system.
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One teacher, who did not want to be named, told heraldsun.com.au that it was little surprise the system crashed with so many teachers trying to log in at the same time.
"What a fiasco, waste of resources, expertise and money," she said.
"Our school-based trainees have spent hours and hours of their own time in preparation for today and have been left in the lurch while trying to deliver this training.
"How many parents have had to take time off work to supervise students not at school?
"Did no-one consider the repercussions of all staff trying to access this site at the one time?
"Our state education system is a joke."
Some teachers resorted to discussing how to spend their downtime on Facebook and Twitter.
One posted: "#ultranet still a big fizzle ... very disappointing ... have made a couple of twitter converts tho."
An unimpressed parent took to Facebook to criticise the failed training day: "Couldn't you teachers learn ultranet in the school holidays instead of inconveincing parents. You get enough holidays!”.
Some teachers seemed less aggravated by the stoppage.
"Well...at a PD that ALL teachers in the state have to attend for the Ultranet...but SURPRISE!!! we cant log onto it! hehehe as if we didn't know this already! DER Education dept!," one post read.
"Should be playing on ultranet! But listening and planning zumba for staff!!!! yippeee!!," another wrote.
"Who ever thought every teacher in victoria could login to the ultranet at once is a crazy fool!!," read another post.
A message from Ultranet Victoria's own Twitter page (@ultranetvic), posted at around 7am this morning read: “Good luck to everyone today. Have a great #ultranet day. We've done our best to make sure the #ultranet is ready to go.”
A teacher from a northern suburbs school said some staff had logged on successfully at 8.30am but by 9am the system had crashed.
"It's bread and circuses. They should be putting people on the ground and not cutting corners. They have gone for the cheapest option," he said.
"You have got thousands of parents trying to juggle their kids today and the system is still down."
Opposition education spokesman Martin Dixon said every single IT project touched by the Brumby Government had turned to fiasco.
"Ultranet is joining Myki, HealthSmart and the LEAP data base as projects that are over time, over budget and just don't work," he said.
"It has been a complete wasted day for Victoria's teachers."
One teacher blogged: "The Ultranet also seems crippled by what I had expected - the tools are not all ‘online’ because the department's VicSmart 'broadband' is criminally under-resourced to save money.
"The last time I heard, (the department) had a contract for a surprisingly limited amount of bandwidth to be shared between all schools - and when the first schools tried to “buy” a bigger connection ... they were told “No, you can’t” - and the reason was simply because if every school wanted to buy 10/20/50/100MB, then the department would not be able to have any bandwidth left over for other schools."
Speaking at a mass meeting of principals to discuss Ultranet this morning, Education Minister Bronwyn Pike admitted there had been problems.
"This is a very big project to roll out and I fully expect there to be hiccups from time to time," she said.
But Ms Pike was confident that the system would be fully operational by the due date of October.
Ultranet will allow students to do work online and parents will have access to information such as academic progress and school announcements.
The system was originally meant to start in 2008 but was dogged by a re-tendering fiasco.
- with Michelle Ainsworth, Patrick Horan
heraldsun.com.au 9 Aug 2010
Just another Government Failure at the expense of the General Public, and the childeren of the masses.
These kind of botch ups do NOT occur in the schools for the leaders.
The government 'OUTSOURCES' to the cheapest option, companies which employ inexpericenced, cheap overseas, Indian labour, with disaterous results.
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