A contract notice was published on 15 June in the Official Journal of the European Union, advertising WELB’s intention to award a contract for a Managed ICT Service Project, to be known as the ‘Education Network for Northern Ireland [EN(ni)].

A key priority for EN(ni) is to procure a service which will integrate tools, applications and services for all school users and will support the personal and professional learning, teaching and management needs of the schools’ education community in Northern Ireland. At the heart of this vision is the requirement for a modular, flexible and standards-based interoperable solution that maximises the possibilities offered by current and emerging technologies.

EN(ni) replaces a number of C2k contracts which have reached the end of their initial contract term and will provide:

• A fully integrated end to end service to meet the management/administration and learning/teaching needs of all grant aided schools;
• ICT infrastructure and associated services for post primary and special schools; and
• Connectivity to, and provision of, a range of online services for all schools.

The EN(ni) procurement is being conducted in accordance with the competitive dialogue procedure, with contract award anticipated in autumn 2011.