The district of Weilheim-Schongau becomes an IT service provider - companies from the private sector get nothing

Created: 01/27/2022, 10:00 am

By: Sebastian Tauchnitz

The demands on the digital infrastructure in schools and administration are increasing, the "district data center" should help.

© Jochen Tack / imago

For several days, the district council went into seclusion to set the course for the work in the coming years.

We present the most important projects in a series.

Today: Digitization and IT.

District – One of the great successes that the district council was able to claim in its previous term of office is that the school IT was finally put on a professional platform.

The aim of the concept was that teachers should do what they were trained and hired to do: teach.

According to the IT concept, the times when computer science teachers or a colleague with an affinity for technology had to take care of setting up networks, pulling cables and installing updates should be a thing of the past.

That is why private service providers were sought to install and maintain the technology in the schools.

Exception: The IT department of the district office is responsible for the networks.

So far, nothing negative has been reported in the district council about the work of the external companies, but the costs for this were high.

This is probably one of the reasons why the contracts with the companies should not be extended, as was decided during the district council meeting.

Instead, these tasks should now be transferred entirely to the IT department of the district office.

"Consolidation and financing of the school IT in an internal operating model means that the support of the school IT is to be provided internally in the district office in the future," confirms the district office in response to a corresponding request from the local newspaper.

In the future, the employees should deal with the planning as well as the support and procurement of new technology.

An idea that has been repeatedly expressed in recent years is to found an IT association that is not only supposed to look after the technology in the district office and the schools under the sponsorship of the district, but also these tasks for cities and communities that do not have their own IT -Experts want to offer could finally off the table.

"This does not involve a transfer of tasks to a subsidiary or a merger," the district office clarifies.

This means that the suggestion that the IT department of the hospital GmbH could be expanded accordingly to take on this task should also have been settled.

However, the district council is still leaving a corresponding back door open: “The inclusion of subsidiaries was part of the discussion.

The final exam is still open.”

The offer could also be made later that the district would also take care of the technology for cities and communities for a corresponding reimbursement of costs.

But: "The original needs of the district must first be covered before an expansion of the range of services can be pursued, if this is still desired."

Because the task is big and time is short: The contracts with the external companies that take care of the IT in the schools today and are the contact persons if there are problems, run for four years and should not be extended.

They should gradually end in the coming years.

When they expire, the tasks are to be gradually taken over school by school.

This decision by the district council comes as a surprise, because in the past it has often been reported in the district committees that it is becoming increasingly difficult to find IT specialists who want to work for the district office.

And if the tasks now increase significantly, more staff will certainly be needed.

Because the demands formulated by the district council in its cloister resolution are high: Digitization in schools should be "implemented as quickly and well-founded as possible" and school IT should be "permanently operated at a high level to the satisfaction of schools and students or citizens". will.

A fresh IT wind should also blow in the district office.

The district council demands that the office buildings should be upgraded in order to be able to provide a "modern basic IT infrastructure with high bandwidths for data transmission".

All of this should lead to the establishment of a “district data center”.

Its task is to “bundle IT resources and to be able to take over and ensure the basic operation of IT for third parties (e.g. municipalities).

This should ensure that the users of the district data center are relieved of basic IT operations in order to be able to use existing resources for further digitization".