In order to meet the needs of technological design courses and other engineering related curriculum, the Ministry of Education has licensed AutoCAD LT for all publicly funded school boards since 2007.
Over the last 2 years, OSAPAC has explored potential upgrades to this product in order to meet evolving demand and changing technologies.
A request for proposals (RFP), a public procurement process, was issued in 2012 but there were no successful proponents. The RFP did not result in any new licence/upgrades.
Since then, the current vendor for AutoCAD – AutoDesk Inc. – has made many of their product offerings (including the latest versions of AutoCAD) available free of charge to students, educators and educational institutions.
Given the availability of this option, the Ministry of Education is not purchasing further licensing for this type of product at this time.
Students, educators, and educational institutions interested in learning more about the offer from AutoDesk can refer to: http://www.autodesk.com/education/free-software/all.