Asked by: Gill Furniss (Labour - Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what contracts his Department has in place for the provision laptops or other digital equipment to schools and local authorities during the covid-19 outbreak; and what proportion of those contracts have been fulfilled.
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 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, the Department announced that it will be providing a further 300,000 devices over the course of this term. 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.
The number of devices available for each school, academy trust or local authority is based on children eligible for free school meals and takes into account existing devices available in schools. Schools, academy trusts and local authorities are responsible for distributing the laptops and tablets and are best placed to know which disadvantaged children and young people need access to a device.
Figures on the number of devices delivered is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/laptops-tablets-and-4g-wireless-routers-progress-data. These figures are broken down by local authority and academy trust. Information on delivery by constituency is not available.
Laptops and tablets provided under the Get Help with Technology scheme meet defined technical specifications to enable remote education and allow for use in schools and colleges. Information on devices specifications is published at: https://get-help-with-tech.education.gov.uk/devices/device-specification.
Details of the contracts for this programme are available at: https://www.gov.uk/contracts-finder, in line with normal Government commercial practice. Information on the proportion of each contract that has been fulfilled is not available.
Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps he is taking with local authorities to ensure that they have sufficient supplies of mobile broadband dongles to distribute to pupils so that they can participate in remote education during the covid-19 lockdown that has been in place since 5 January 2021.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Government is investing over £400 million to support access to remote education and online social care services.
The Department has provided over 54,000 4G wireless routers, with free data for the academic year, and continues to provide 4G wireless routers where children need to access remote education.
We have also partnered with 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. Schools are able to request free mobile data uplifts via the Get Help with Technology service: https://get-help-with-tech.education.gov.uk/.
We are grateful to Three, EE, Tesco Mobile, Smarty, Sky Mobile, Virgin Mobile, O2 and Vodafone. We continue to invite a range of mobile network providers to support the offer.
A number of mobile network providers are also progressing the zero-rating of educational resources, such as Oak Academy and BBC Bitesize.
Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps he is taking to promote the repurposing of digital devices no longer needed by (a) private sector businesses and (b) members of the public for use by pupils who cannot afford a digital device for their education.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department is investing over £300 million to help schools and young people in England continue their education at home and access online social care. Since the start of the COVID-19 outbreak, the Department has already delivered over 560,000 laptops and tablets for disadvantaged children who would not otherwise have access to a digital device.
The Department is adding to this support by making a further 440,000 devices available bringing the total to over a million laptops and tablets available to support disadvantaged children that might experience disruption to their education. The laptops and tablets are an injection of support to help schools, academy trusts and local authorities to provide access to remote education and online social care. 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.
As face-to-face education is now disrupted, we know that it is critical to get schools the support that they need in the shortest time frame.
The Department considered options to refurbish second-hand laptops and tablets but these could not be rolled out to schools and local authorities at scale over the urgent timeframe to meet the needs of these children, young people and families.
Asked by: Lord Taylor of Warwick (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to provide self-isolating students from disadvantaged backgrounds with digital devices.
Answered by Baroness Berridge
As part of over £195 million invested to support access to remote education and online social care, over 340,000 laptops and tablets are being made available this term to support disadvantaged children in year 3 to 11 whose face-to-face education may be disrupted. Since September, over 100,000 of these have been delivered to schools.
This supplements over 220,000 laptops and tablets and over 50,000 4G wireless routers, which have already been delivered during the summer term.
This represents an injection of over half-a-million laptops and tablets by the end of the year.
Laptops and tablets are owned by the local authority, trust or school who can lend unused laptops and tablets to children and young people who need them most, if they experience disruption to face-to-face education due to the COVID-19 outbreak.
Once children who have been self-isolating return to school, and if others are required to self-isolate, schools can choose to reallocate devices to those pupils who are out of school.
We continue to provide 4G wireless routers, with free data, where schools face disruption and children need to access remote education.
In partnership with mobile network operators, we are providing access to free additional mobile data for the academic year, offering families flexibility to access the resources that they need the most.
Asked by: Siobhain McDonagh (Labour - Mitcham and Morden)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many dongles and other mifi devices have been procured to support remote education since the start of the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department has already provided over 51,000 4G wireless routers, with free data for the rest of the academic year. We continue to provide 4G wireless routers, with free data, where schools face disruption and children need to access remote education.
Local authorities, academy trusts and schools are responsible for distributing the 4G wireless routers and are best placed to know which children and young people need access to the internet.
In partnership with mobile network operators, we are providing access to free additional mobile data for the academic year, offering families flexibility to access the resources that they need the most.
The mobile data uplifts will be in place until the end of the academic year. Schools will be able to request free mobile data uplifts for disadvantaged children up to Year 11 via the Get Help with Technology service, when they experience disruption to face-to-face education or for clinically extremely vulnerable children.
Asked by: Siobhain McDonagh (Labour - Mitcham and Morden)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many dongles and other mifi devices have been distributed to families to support remote education since the start of the covid-9 outbreak.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department has already provided over 51,000 4G wireless routers, with free data for the rest of the academic year. We continue to provide 4G wireless routers, with free data, where schools face disruption and children need to access remote education.
Local authorities, academy trusts and schools are responsible for distributing the 4G wireless routers and are best placed to know which children and young people need access to the internet.
In partnership with mobile network operators, we are providing access to free additional mobile data for the academic year, offering families flexibility to access the resources that they need the most.
The mobile data uplifts will be in place until the end of the academic year. Schools will be able to request free mobile data uplifts for disadvantaged children up to Year 11 via the Get Help with Technology service, when they experience disruption to face-to-face education or for clinically extremely vulnerable children.
Asked by: Siobhain McDonagh (Labour - Mitcham and Morden)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many dongles and mifi devices distributed to support remote education are in active use by families.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department has already provided over 51,000 4G wireless routers, with free data for the rest of the academic year. We continue to provide 4G wireless routers, with free data, where schools face disruption and children need to access remote education.
Local authorities, academy trusts and schools are responsible for distributing the 4G wireless routers and are best placed to know which children and young people need access to the internet.
In partnership with mobile network operators, we are providing access to free additional mobile data for the academic year, offering families flexibility to access the resources that they need the most.
The mobile data uplifts will be in place until the end of the academic year. Schools will be able to request free mobile data uplifts for disadvantaged children up to Year 11 via the Get Help with Technology service, when they experience disruption to face-to-face education or for clinically extremely vulnerable children.
Asked by: Yasmin Qureshi (Labour - Bolton South East)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent progress his Department has made on ensuring that all pupils learning at home as a result of self-isolation or class closures have access to (a) digital devices and (b) adequate broadband provision.
Answered by Nick Gibb
As part of over £195 million invested to support access to remote education and online social care, we are making over 340,000 additional laptops and tablets available this term to support disadvantaged children in Years 3 to 11 whose face to face education may be disrupted. Since September, over 100,000 of these have already been delivered to schools.
This supplements over 220,000 laptops and tablets, which have already been delivered during the summer term. This represents an injection of over half a million devices by the end of the year.
We have also distributed over 51,000 4G wireless routers, which are provided with free data for the rest of the 2020/21 academic year. Routers can be distributed by the local authorities, academy trusts and schools who own them to any disadvantaged children and young people.
In partnership with mobile network operators, we are providing access to free additional data for the academic year, offering families flexibility to access the resources that they need the most.
Schools can request free mobile data uplifts for families who lack sufficient internet access, via the Get Help with Technology service, when they experience disruption to face to face education or for clinically extremely vulnerable children.
Asked by: Robert Halfon (Conservative - Harlow)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps his Department is taking to support 16-19 year-olds with digital access to learning to ensure they can continue their education in the event that they are not in school.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Young people aged 16 to 19 without suitable laptops and tablets for education may be eligible for support through the 16 to 19 Bursary Fund. Providers make decisions as to who receives bursary funding, based on their own criteria. More information on support for 16 to 19 year olds can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/16-to-19-education-financial-support-for-students.
Where further education colleges are supplementing their on-site education with online education, the Department’s guidance asks colleges and other further education institutions to preserve provision on-site for all students who need it. This includes students without access to devices or connectivity at home.
Asked by: Gareth Thomas (Labour (Co-op) - Harrow West)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 7 October 2020 to Question 96748, what recent estimate he has made of the number of disadvantaged (a) primary and (b) secondary school children (i) with and (ii) still without access to appropriate information technology equipment in their homes; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Government wants to do everything it can to support schools to deliver remote education. The Department has invested over £195 million to support remote education and access to online social care, delivering over 220,000 laptops and tablets during the summer term for disadvantaged children who would not otherwise have access to a digital device.
The Department is adding to this support by making over 340,000 additional laptops and tablets available to support disadvantaged children that might face disruption to their education. Since September over 100,000 of these have been delivered to schools.
The Department has allocated a number of devices to each school. To arrive at this allocation, the Department used data on the number of pupils eligible for free school meals in each school. The Department expects that pupils’ device needs will be met to some extent by the device endowments of schools and colleges. The Department has used the British Educational Suppliers Association ICT 2019 survey data on the average number of laptops and tablets in primary and secondary schools.
Schools, local authorities and academy trusts are able to request additional devices if their original allocation from the Department does not meet their needs.