A controversial data collection system in place in school districts across B.C. should be replaced a consultant has found, because it's "not well positioned to meet the future needs of education within B.C."
Used primarily to track students' attendance and marks, the British Columbia enterprise Student Information System (BCeSIS) has been a thorn in the side of Prince George teachers since it was introduced six years ago.
They have tagged it as cumbersome and slow, particularly when it's under heavy use and Prince George and District Teachers Association (PGDTA) president Matt Pearce said the consultant's conclusion could not have come soon enough.
While the system is not sustainable in the long term, it should be capable of supporting the current and short term needs of the province for the next three years, the consultant said.
Pearce said that should give the province enough time to carry out a proper consultation before choosing a replacement.
"The lost time for teachers and other school board employees across the province in working with this software, and it was never up to the task, has been just an immense waste of money," Pearce said.
"It was brought in largely without consultation of the thousands and thousands of people who use it every day and the hope is whatever replaces it, it's done right, and the people who use it pilot it and their feedback is taken into account with whatever is going to be adopted next."
School District 57 was among the first districts to take on the system and pays the provincial government $10 per student, or roughly $135,000 a year, for BCeSIS, which is operated by a private company on behalf of the provincial government.
School board chair Lyn Hall said the system has delivered mixed results.
"It has caused us issues over the years," Hall said. "We found that when you had a number of users trying to get onto the system at one time, the system quite often will freeze and I think that it needs to be more user friendly."
However, Hall expects the school district will continue to pay a fee regardless of which new system will be implemented and said maintaining a province-wide system remains worthwhile.
"We have students that move from district to district and for a student that will move from say our district to perhaps down in the Okanagan or the Kootenays, it gives that district an opportunity to have instant information regarding the student," Hall said.
Education minister George Abbott has reportedly said the system will be scrapped but he could not be reached for comment Monday and a ministry official said no decision has been made.
As currently deployed, BCeSIS is not meeting the business, technical or operational needs of B.C. and is not a viable future alternative," the consultant said. "Within the current marketplace there exist multiple vendors that would be better able to support the direction of B.C. and be able to provide the technical architecture necessary to achieve B.C.'s objectives and goals".
The software cost $16 million to build and about $11 million a year to maintain and operate. The province also provided $6.6 million in incentives for schools to adopt the software, for a total of $89 million so far.
