The National Audit Office has urged the authorities to draw up an  IT Strategy for State Schools to meet the objectives highlighted within the National Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Strategy.

It also called for a study to assess the impact of the increased Internet usage following the introduction of interactive white-boards, for future capacity planning.

The office also made recommendations related to software access controls and the management of ICT resources.

The recommendations were made in an audit on the overall operational
effectiveness of the Information Technology (IT) and Information Systems (IS) currently being used by primary and secondary state schools.

The main aim was to determine whether colleges have in place the necessary controls to ensure that their IT and IS maintain data integrity, safeguard assets, allow organisational goals to be achieved effectively and assist in making efficient use of the Government IT related resources.

The Office said it had noted with satisfaction that overall, all the four software applications reviewed in this IT audit are being managed effectively by the respective users.

The Report also reviewed the operational and security aspects of IT. In this regard, the National Audit Office recommended that colleges should continue to invest in the physical and environmental controls in order to provide a more secure environment for the IT related resources within the schools.

It noted that colleges do not have, or refer to, an information classification policy or an information retention and storage policy.

It said they should have a formally documented business continuity and disaster recovery (BCDR) plan at a school level. Thus, the report suggests that the Ministry should perform a business impact analysis as well as a risk assessment exercise in colleges, so that the above plans can be drafted and eventually adopted and followed.

This Report may be accessed through the National Audit Office website (www.nao.gov.mt) as from tomorrow.

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