Remote Education: Computers
(asked on 19th January 2021) - View Source
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if he will publish the number of laptops (a) allocated and (b) delivered to pupils to support remote education by constituency in each week of the last six months; and if he will publish the number of children in receipt of free school meals by constituency in each of the last six months.
The Government is investing over £400 million to support access to remote education and online social care services, by securing 1.3 million laptops and tablets for disadvantaged children and young people. As of Monday 18 January, over 800,000 laptops and tablets had been delivered to schools, academy trusts and local authorities.
The Government is providing this significant injection of devices on top of an estimated 2.9 million laptops and tablets already owned by schools before the start of the COVID-19 outbreak.
The number of devices available to each school, academy trust and local authority is determined by the number of children eligible for free school meals. All schools, academy trusts and local authorities have now been given the opportunity to order their full current allocation of devices.
Figures on the number of devices delivered is available at: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/laptops-and-tablets-data/2021-week-3.
These figures are broken down by local authority and academy trust. Figures on delivery by constituency are not available.
Data related to the number of pupils claiming free school meals is collected in the termly school census. We routinely publish the statistics from the spring (January) school census in the schools, pupils and their characteristics statistical release. The most recent published figures, from the January 2020 school census, are available at the following link, including data for each school and the constituency they are in:
Due to the COVID-19 outbreak, a summer census did not take place in the 2019/20 academic year. The Department plans to publish the information relating to October 2020 in due course.