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Network for Learning (N4L) is aiming to exert more centralised control and to provide increased support of technology and services provided to schools and kura.
The state-owned service provider was exploring ways to collaborate with the Ministry of Education to exert tighter control over centrally funded services, the organisation told Parliament as part of its annual review process.
“This includes standardising the deployment of software licenses from major providers like Microsoft or Google to ensure schools adopt best practices.”
N4L is also rolling out new products and services such as email protection to detect and block malicious emails and secure access, via Cloudpath’s secure access server, as well as network segmentation.
That project would allow the network to be segmented by user type or device and to customise content filtering for different user groups, allowing for tailored restrictions and permissions.
Segmentation also prevented cyber incidents from spreading across different parts of the network.
The project has not been without its challenges, however. N4L was expected to deliver secure access to 250 schools last year but only achieved 89.
“The reason why we slowed down the delivery of secure access is because the technology we were using, which was selected by the ministry, which we were then delivering to the schools, was creating issues with guest access,” N4L CEO Larrie Moore told Parliament’s education and workforce committee.
Asked if N4L participated in such procurements, Moore said “some of the time”.
“I think the commitment now from the ministry is that we always will be, but it hasn’t always been the case.”
The guest access issue has since been remediated and the roll-out was back on track.
One of N4L’s primary challenges was ensuring schools were aware of their current cybersecurity status, it said in response to written questions from the committee.
N4L aimed to provide customised advice and security scores to guide schools from their current state to a more secure one, it explained. Applying N4L’s “safe and secure standard” had increased compliance from 70 per cent to 96 per cent.
Among other services delivered by N4L are DNS filtering, DDoS protection, remote access for educators, firewall and filtering all backed by security incident and event management.
Last year, N4L issued an advance notice saying it intended to select a provider for the next generation of managed network services by mid-2024.
Moore told Reseller News N4L was working through the final stages of the process.