Mass email outage for NSW teachers

Email and authentication services for up to 135,000 staff working in schools across New South Wales are expected to be back up and running tomorrow, the Department of Education and Communities has said.

"Today, there has been an issue with school staff access to some computer services, including email," a department spokesperson said. "The department has been working to resolve this as a matter of high priority, and it is hoped services will be returned to normal by the start of business tomorrow."

The spokesperson said that school teachers are still able to access the internet and locally held resources.

The cause of the outage of email and authentication services, which are believed to have been down since the middle of Monday, is not yet known at this stage, but the department is investigating the cause, the spokesperson said.

In 2008, Google secured an AU$9.5 million deal over three years to provide email services to 1.3 million students and staff across the state. In late 2012, the department began rolling out Google Apps to 750,000 students and 85,000 teachers across New South Wales.

The department spokesperson said that while the cause of the outage is still unknown, the issue is not related to Google's services provided to the department.