I am pleased to announce that beginning this fall, all schools and school districts will have access to a mass communication tool which will allow them to send instant messages via telephone or e-mail to parents or guardians.

Government is investing approximately $150,000 annually to enable school districts to purchase this service. Once in place, every school in the province will have the ability to alert the local parent community about important notifications. These could include emergency messages, information on school closures or changes to bus schedules. It can also be used to send a message to a specific home to report on individual incidents, to give a homework reminder, and even to notify parents when a child is not in class. The service is also capable of multilingual message delivery.

When we think about information technologies in education, we often think of computers in the classroom or interactive white boards, but government has also made tremendous investments in important technology outside the classroom. For example, we invest $1 million annually to purchase software licensing, including Microsoft licensing for schools and school boards, providing a common software package for students and teachers. We provided secure flash drives to every teacher in the province who required one. More than $430,000 was allocated for anti-virus software licensing for use in the entire K-12 system. As well, $1 million is being invested annually for an additional 20 information technology support specialists for school boards.

Investments such as these provide a solid foundation that contributes to improved teaching and learning. All technology has a shelf life and all technology continues to improve. We are working to equip schools with technology that is functional, affordable and relevant. With today's announcement, we are providing a new technology in schools that will meet the needs of both students and parents.