Education: Coronavirus

(asked on 13th May 2020) - View Source

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent estimate the Government has made of the number of (a) primary and (b) secondary school pupils who are unable to access their school online classroom due to school closures during the covid-19 outbreak as they do not have digital devices or internet access at home by each (i) region and (ii) nation of the UK.


Answered by
Nick Gibb Portrait
Nick Gibb
This question was answered on 18th May 2020

The Government has committed over £100 million to support vulnerable and disadvantaged children in England to access remote education. We are providing laptops and tablets to disadvantaged children who would otherwise not have access and are preparing for examination in Year 10, receiving support from a social worker or are a care leaver. We are also providing 4G routers to care leavers, children with a social worker at secondary school and disadvantaged Year 10 pupils who do not have sufficient internet connections.

The Department has ordered over 200,000 laptops and tablets and allocated devices based on its estimates of the number of eligible children that do not have access to a device.

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