Remote Education

(asked on 19th January 2021) - View Source

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment his Department has made of the levels of adequacy of home learning environments (a) nationally and (b) in York for pupils of (i) secondary age and (ii) primary age during the covid-19 outbreak.


Answered by
Nick Gibb Portrait
Nick Gibb
This question was answered on 29th 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. As of Monday 25 January 2021, over 870,000 laptops and tablets have been delivered to state schools, trusts and local authorities.

Laptops and tablets are owned by schools, trusts or local authorities who can lend these to children and young people who need them most during the current COVID-19 restrictions.

The Department has delivered 787 laptops and tablets directly to York local authority. We have also delivered devices to academy trusts that include schools in York, which are not included in this figure.

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 outbreak.

Where schools need additional devices, in order to support disadvantaged children, they should contact the Department’s service team at: covid.technology@education.gov.uk. They should include the number of pupils who require support and an explanation of how they have gathered this evidence.

Figures on the number of devices delivered are available at: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/laptops-and-tablets-data/2021-week-4.

These figures are broken down by local authority and academy trust. Figures on delivery by constituency are not available.

The Department has partnered with the UK’s leading mobile operators to provide free data to help disadvantaged children get online, as well as delivering 4G wireless routers for pupils without connection at home on a daily basis.

Local authorities, academy trusts and schools can identify any 4G wireless routers they have received that are not being used and reallocate them to children and young people with the greatest need.

Data on delivery of 4G wireless routers will be published in due course.

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