Named Kaartdijin, the innovative technology will be in the state’s 832 public schools by mid-2026, ensuring WA will be the first public education system in Australia to introduce the integrated platform.
The state-of-the-art tech is part of a raft of measures designed to reduce the amount of time that teachers and school staff spend on administrative and reporting tasks.
Teachers will be able to manage their classroom administration on any device connected to the internet.
They can check on their students’ attendance, behaviour and wellbeing, while also having the option to communicate to parents and carers in any language through an inbuilt Google translator.
“The introduction of this cutting-edge technology is part of our Government’s efforts to reduce non-teaching workloads so schools can spend more time on the education and wellbeing of students,” WA Education Minister Dr Tony Buti said.
“Our investment helps teachers and school leaders to focus on teaching and lesson planning, while providing schools with a secure environment to check on the wellbeing of students.”
Compass Education, based in Melbourne and already supplying software to more than 150 WA schools, and TechnologyOne were awarded $189 million in contracts to develop the technology for the WA public school system.
Technology One, considered Australia’s largest home-grown ERP software provider, will deliver the school finance software, which, it said, will support the “billing, finance, accounting, budgeting and management reporting function for the department and the schools it services”.
The company’s CEO, Ed Chung, said the solution to be uses already “empowers more than 1.4 million students globally”.
“This deep sector expertise, honed over the last 36 years, means we understand our customers’ priorities...,” he said in a statement.
Compass Education, meanwhile, will provide the school administration, student administration and timetabling modules.
Its co-founder and CEO John de la Motte said supporting local technology jobs is a key tenement of his company.
“We’re thrilled Western Australia’s Department of Education has chosen local technology providers to power its public schools,” he said in a statement.
Kaartdijin replaces several outdated systems being used to monitor student data, set budgets and manage assets, including tasks that are still paper-based in some schools.
“WA is leading the way on this, and other States will be looking to learn from our experiences at a system-level with this technology,” Buti said.
“We want to ensure students are safe and cared for while they are learning in our schools.”
The new platform will be introduced to schools in a staged rollout starting next term and builds on several initiatives implemented late last year to reduce red tape for teachers.
