Asked by: Jane Hunt (Conservative - Loughborough)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment his Department has made of the effectiveness of the rollout of laptops and other devices to disadvantaged pupils to support remote learning during the covid-19 outbreak; and (b) what further steps he plans to take to ensure that every eligible child has access to their own device.
Answered by Nick Gibb
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. The Department has now extended the Get Help with Technology scheme to provide disadvantaged 16 to 19 year olds with technological support.
As of Monday 1 February 2021, over 920,000 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 rollout of laptops and tablets through this scheme is being continually reviewed to ensure support is offered in the most effective way.
Laptops and tablets are owned by schools, academy trusts or local authorities who can lend these to children and young people who need them most during the current COVID-19 restrictions.
Asked by: Diana Johnson (Labour - Kingston upon Hull North)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what plans his Department has to increase the speed of the rollout of (a) digital devices and (b) access to the internet to children who are not in school as a result of the covid-19 outbreak in (a) Yorkshire and The Humber, (b) Kingston Upon Hull and (c) the UK.
Answered by Nick Gibb
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, this includes over 870,000 laptops and tablets that were delivered to 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 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.
Figures on the number of devices already delivered is available at: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/laptops-and-tablets-data/2021-week-4. We have also delivered devices to academy trusts that include schools in Yorkshire and Humber, which are not included in this figure.
Regional figures for delivery of devices are currently not available for the period requested and figures by Parliamentary constituency are also not available.
Where schools need additional devices, in order to support disadvantaged children, they should contact the Department for Education’s service team at covid.technology@education.gov.uk. They should include the number of pupils in years 3-13 who require support and an explanation of how they’ve gathered this evidence.
To support access to the internet we have 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.
We are grateful to EE, O2, Sky Mobile, Smarty, Tesco Mobile, Three, Virgin Mobile, Vodafone, BT Mobile and Lycamobile for their collaboration. We are currently engaged with additional mobile network operators and continue to invite a range of mobile network providers to support the offer.
Asked by: Rosie Cooper (Labour - West Lancashire)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what proportion of schools in England have received their requested allocation of devices to support remote learning.
Answered by Nick Gibb
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, this includes over 870,000 laptops and tablets that were delivered to schools, academy trusts and local authorities.
All schools have been invited to order their full allocation of devices. Schools, academy trusts and local authorities are responsible for distributing the laptops and tablets and are best placed to know which children and young people need access to a device.
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.
The Department announced on 12 January 2021 that it is purchasing 300,000 more laptops and tablets, bringing the total number we have secured from one million to 1.3 million. The Get Help with Technology scheme will email all schools with information on the number of additional devices allocated to them, and when they will be able to order. We are 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.
Where pupils experience barriers to digital remote education, we expect schools to offer different forms of remote education such as printed resources or textbooks. This should be supplemented with other forms of communication to keep pupils on track or answer questions about work.
Where schools need additional devices, above their allocations, they should contact the Department for Education’s service team at covid.technology@education.gov.uk. They should include the number of disadvantaged children in years 3 to 11 who require support and an explanation of how they have gathered this evidence.
Asked by: Saqib Bhatti (Conservative - Meriden)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many (a) laptops and (b) home learning devices have been distributed to children in (i) England, (ii) the West Midlands and (iii) the Meriden constituency to support access to education during the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Nick Gibb
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 25 January, over 870,000 laptops and tablets had been delivered to schools, trusts and local authorities across England, who are responsible for distributing them onward to disadvantaged children and families.
Figures on the number of devices delivered, broken down by local authority and academy trust are available at: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/laptops-and-tablets-data.
All schools, academy trusts and local authorities have now been given the opportunity to order devices. Laptops and tablets are owned by schools, trusts or local authorities to lend to children and young people who need them most during the current COVID-19 restrictions.
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. On 12 January 2021, we announced that we will be providing a further 300,000 devices over the course of this term.
We have also partnered with the UK’s leading mobile operators to provide free data for the academic year to help disadvantaged children get online. We are grateful to EE, O2 Smarty, Sky Mobile, Tesco Mobile, Three, Virgin Mobile, and Vodafone for their collaboration. We continue to invite a range of mobile network providers to support the offer. We have also delivered 54,000 4G wireless routers for pupil and care leavers without connection at home.
Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of giving every school pupil at each Key Stage access to a laptop or desktop IT device and broadband for the future delivery of education.
Answered by Nick Gibb
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. This includes over 870,000 laptops and tablets that were delivered to schools, trusts and local authorities by 25 January.
The number of devices available to each school, trust and local authority is determined by their number of children eligible for Free School Meals. All schools, trusts and local authorities have now been given the opportunity to order their full current allocation of devices.
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. On 12 January, we announced that we will be providing a further 300,000 devices over the course of this term.
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-4. These figures are broken down by Local Authority and Academy Trust. Figures on delivery by constituency are not available.
The Get Help with Technology scheme will enable schools to support disadvantaged children in years 3-11 and aged 16-19 who do not have access to a laptop or tablet privately or through school. In the context of unprecedented global demand for laptops and tablets, the year groups were set following conversations with school leaders and on the basis that children in younger years would be unlikely to be working on a laptop or tablet independently.
Where pupils experience barriers to digital remote education, we expect schools to offer different forms of remote education such as printed resources or textbooks. This should be supplemented with other forms of communication to keep pupils on track or answer questions about work.
We have also partnered with the UK’s leading mobile operators to provide free data for the academic year to help disadvantaged children get online. We are grateful to EE, O2, Smarty, Sky Mobile, Tesco Mobile, Three, Virgin Mobile, and Vodafone. We continue to invite a range of mobile network providers to support the offer. We have also delivered 54,000 4G wireless routers for pupil and care leavers without connection at home.
Asked by: Wes Streeting (Labour - Ilford North)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what security checks his Department performs on laptops and other devices purchased from third parties before sending those devices to schools and local authorities as part of its Get Help with Technology programme.
Answered by Nick Gibb
To date, the Department has received reports of the presence of a software virus on 33 laptops out of 800,000 devices provided to schools. The virus was detected as part of the setup of the device by the schools before they were passed to pupils.
The first notification of an issue was on 7 January 2021, with further notifications in the 3 weeks after, up to the 22 January. The windows laptops affected were ones where the school had chosen to set up the device themselves, rather than accept a Department for Education build.
In all known cases, the virus was automatically detected and removed immediately by the included antivirus software during the installation process.
The Department have been in constant contact with suppliers and relevant parties to understand and resolve this issue, and firmly believe this is a contained incident which we are dealing with at pace.
All devices without a Department for Education build are provided by the supplier from the point of manufacture directly to the school. The Department are reliant upon schools accepting the responsibility to install and configure any new devices in line with advice and guidance provided by both the Department and the National Cyber Security Centre.
In no circumstances should there be an occurrence of any child receiving a device that has not been securely and properly set up. Once the device is issued to a pupil, the ongoing risks associated with privacy, safeguarding and security of those devices and its users is entirely based upon how the schools and Local Authorities manage them.
The Department takes online safety and security extremely seriously. Any schools that have concerns about devices should contact the support desk at: https://get-help-with-tech.education.gov.uk.
Asked by: Siobhain McDonagh (Labour - Mitcham and Morden)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many (a) laptops and tablets and (b) 4G wireless routers have been delivered to (i) schools, (ii) local authorities or (iii) academy trusts as of 21 January 2021.
Answered by Nick Gibb
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, we have delivered over 870,000 laptops and tablets to schools, trusts and local authorities. More information can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/laptops-and-tablets-progress-data-during-the-coronavirus-covid-19-outbreak.
Data on delivery of 4G wireless routers will be published in due course.
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 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.
We have 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.
We are grateful to EE, O2, Sky Mobile, Smarty, Tesco Mobile, Three, Virgin Mobile, and Vodafone for their collaboration. We continue to invite a range of mobile network providers to support the offer.
All four major mobile network operators - Vodafone, O2, Three and EE - have also committed to working together to make access to Oak National Academy free for school children. Additionally, the Department is grateful to BT and EE, who are making access to BBC Bitesize resources free from the end of January 2021.
Asked by: Toby Perkins (Labour - Chesterfield)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate he has made of the number of (a) laptops and (b) wireless dongles that have been provided by his Department to further education colleges in England.
Answered by Gillian Keegan - Secretary of State for Education
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 800,000 laptops and tablets that were delivered to schools, academy trusts and local authorities by 17 January.
The department has already provided 4G wireless routers, with free data for the academic year, to schools, trusts and local authorities and continue to provide 4G wireless routers where children need to access remote education.
Disadvantaged learners aged 16-19 in schools and further education colleges are supported through the 16-19 bursary fund. During the 2020 summer term, we enabled schools and further education colleges to boost their bursary fund to meet any extra costs for student technology needs.
We have now extended the Get Help with Technology scheme to provide disadvantaged 16 to 19 year olds with technological support.
We expect to be able to invite most eligible further education providers, including colleges, sixth form colleges and school sixth forms, to order devices before the end of January. Other further education providers, such as independent training providers and special post-16 institutions, will also be in the frame if they have learners receiving free school meals.
Asked by: Toby Perkins (Labour - Chesterfield)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate he has made of the number of further education students without an appropriate digital device to allow them to study remotely.
Answered by Gillian Keegan - Secretary of State for Education
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 800,000 laptops and tablets that were delivered to schools, academy trusts and local authorities by 17 January.
The department has already provided 4G wireless routers, with free data for the academic year, to schools, trusts and local authorities and continue to provide 4G wireless routers where children need to access remote education.
Disadvantaged learners aged 16-19 in schools and further education colleges are supported through the 16-19 bursary fund. During the 2020 summer term, we enabled schools and further education colleges to boost their bursary fund to meet any extra costs for student technology needs.
We have now extended the Get Help with Technology scheme to provide disadvantaged 16 to 19 year olds with technological support.
We expect to be able to invite most eligible further education providers, including colleges, sixth form colleges and school sixth forms, to order devices before the end of January. Other further education providers, such as independent training providers and special post-16 institutions, will also be in the frame if they have learners receiving free school meals.
Asked by: Toby Perkins (Labour - Chesterfield)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many digital devices his Department plans to supply to further education colleges in England; and when the full allocation will be supplied by.
Answered by Gillian Keegan - Secretary of State for Education
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 800,000 laptops and tablets that were delivered to schools, academy trusts and local authorities by 17 January.
The department has already provided 4G wireless routers, with free data for the academic year, to schools, trusts and local authorities and continue to provide 4G wireless routers where children need to access remote education.
Disadvantaged learners aged 16-19 in schools and further education colleges are supported through the 16-19 bursary fund. During the 2020 summer term, we enabled schools and further education colleges to boost their bursary fund to meet any extra costs for student technology needs.
We have now extended the Get Help with Technology scheme to provide disadvantaged 16 to 19 year olds with technological support.
We expect to be able to invite most eligible further education providers, including colleges, sixth form colleges and school sixth forms, to order devices before the end of January. Other further education providers, such as independent training providers and special post-16 institutions, will also be in the frame if they have learners receiving free school meals.