Children: Computers

(asked on 12th January 2021) - View Source

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps he is taking to speed up the rollout of digital devices and wi-fi to children who are unable to access remote learning from home.


Answered by
Nick Gibb Portrait
Nick Gibb
This question was answered on 18th January 2021

The Government is investing over £400 million to support access to remote education and online social care services, including securing 1.3 million laptops and tablets for disadvantaged children and young people. This includes over 750,000 laptops and tablets that were delivered to schools, trusts and local authorities by the end of last week, with 100,000 of these delivered in the first week of January alone.

We have already sent over 50,000 4G wireless routers, with free data for the academic year, to schools, so that children have access to remote education.

The Department has also partnered with some of the UK’s leading mobile network operators to provide free data to disadvantaged families, which will support access to education resources, including Oak National Academy, and other websites.

Families will benefit from this additional data until July 2021. Schools are able to request free mobile data uplifts via the Get Help with Technology service.

A number of mobile network providers are also progressing the zero-rating of educational resources, such as Oak Academy and BBC Bitesize.

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