Case Study: BC Ministry of Education achieves secure, equitable province‑wide network access and C$20M ROI with Palo Alto Networks

Ministry of Education Improves Opportunities for Students Across British Columbia with Secure, Equitable Network Services

The British Columbia Ministry of Education, which oversees more than 560,000 students across 60 school districts and 1,600+ public schools, needed to provide secure, equitable network access across a vast and varied geography. The challenge was to enforce province-wide security standards while giving individual districts and schools the flexibility to apply local policies and support remote, rural locations without disrupting learning.

The ministry deployed the Palo Alto Networks Security Operating Platform—centralized management with Panorama, next‑generation firewalls, GlobalProtect, WildFire and URL/Threat services—so districts could share standards while retaining local control. The rollout secured access for all schools, delivered a C$20M+ five‑year return, cut cyber incidents dramatically (from hundreds to about 90/month province‑wide), reduced average remediation to under 15 minutes, and achieved 99.99% uptime with an 88% customer satisfaction rate.

BC Ministry of Education

James Shypitka

Executive Director, Strategic Infrastructure Initiatives Branch