Getting the balance right

In response to an acute demand for ICT technical support for schools and communities in remote and rural areas, and the shortage of qualified personnel to provide such support, the New Zealand Ministry of Education at the beginning of 2005 initiated ‘The Community Technician’s Project’ under a group of ICT-innovation projects entitled ‘Digital Opportunities’. The project identified suitable people from 10 remote regions of New Zealand, who are being trained and supported by the Ministry to provide quality- assured technical support to their schools and communities. The project is being undertaken in partnership with qualification provider, the Christchurch Polytechnic Institute of Technology1 (CPIT), with further resource and logistical support being provided by corporate project sponsors such as Microsoft (N.Z), Telecom (N.Z), Renaissance Corporation, and hardware provider IBM.

The project positions each technician within a cluster of up to eight schools, with work organisation and management being the responsibility of a “host” school within each cluster. The Community Technicians are expected to provide a negotiated level of technical support to the cluster schools during training, being required to develop a balance between the requirements of study, and managing the day-to-day technical needs of the schools.
This paper backgrounds the Community Technicians’ project, and examines some of the issues which have been revealed during the first six months of its operation.