Asked by
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what progress they have made
towards providing laptops and tablets to those pupils who require
such equipment for online learning.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for
Education and Department for International Trade () (Con) [V]
My Lords, the Government are investing more than £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. To date, we have
delivered more than 1 million laptops and tablets to schools,
trusts, local authorities and further education providers. We are
making further deliveries all the time and expect to achieve our
overall commitment to delivering 1.3 million devices by the end
of the spring term.
(Lab)
[V]
I thank the noble Baroness for her Answer—those are, indeed, very
big numbers. However, Ofcom reports that between 1.1 million and
1.8 million children have no access to a device at home and
880,000 live in a household with only mobile internet connection.
The Sutton Trust reported in January that only 10% of teachers
felt that their students had adequate access to a device for
remote learning, while 17% say that their students have no access
at all. The gap in internet access has grown, with 21% of
deprived schools reporting that one in five do not have adequate
access. Even if all schools manage to open and remain open from 8
March, devices and internet access will remain important for all
young people’s learning, so what more will the Government do to
close the digital gap?
(Con) [V]
My Lords, the noble Baroness is correct that, going forward,
remote education will be part of children’s lives. On
connectivity, the Government have distributed 60,000 4G wireless
routers and have negotiated data deals with many of the mobile
phone providers to ensure that parents can have their data limit
lifted to enable their children to access remote education. The
devices that I have outlined are in addition to the 2.9 million
devices that were already present in schools before the pandemic
began.
(DUP) [V]
My Lords, I acknowledge the Prime Minister’s desire to have
children back in the classroom, but how will the noble Baroness
ensure that pupils who have had no equipment for online learning
over the past number of months at home will not be left
educationally disadvantaged? Even yet, can they receive laptops
and tablets, or what special measures will be taken to assist
them to regain lost educational tuition?
(Con) [V]
My Lords, those children who were without connectivity or were
struggling to engage with education at home could be brought into
our schools in England and classified by teachers as vulnerable
children, to ensure that they were gaining access to education.
Only schools will know how much learning has been lost by
students, but we have commissioned Renaissance Learning and the
EPI so that we can know, as soon as possible, the data on lost
learning in order to help children catch up.
(Con)
My Lords, with the return of schools next month, are there plans
to distribute in the long term the many devices that have been
provided to those children on the wrong side of the digital
divide?
(Con) [V]
My Lords, the devices that we have distributed remain the
property of local authorities, schools or multi-academy trusts,
and we expect them to use those devices flexibly going forward.
For instance, if they are running summer schools for some year
groups, they can call devices back in from certain pupils and
redistribute them. We expect, in the medium-term and long-term,
to make sure that the best of our teaching is available to most
pupils in this country by using remote education.
(CB)
My Lords, I declare my interest as a governor of the
Vodafone-supported M-PESA Academy in Nairobi, Kenya, where every
one of our 820 children from the poorest communities in the
country have a fully functioning Apple iPad and 4G, both at their
home or village community, area or school to support their
learning. Given the huge and ongoing task of catch-up that will
be required and the skills development after schools go back here
in the United Kingdom, have the Government engaged with the tech,
mobile and computer hardware companies, all of which have made
massive profits during the pandemic because of homeworking, with
the duty to give them a public citizenship role in gifting
equipment and wi-fi to the families and children most in need? If
not, why not?
(Con) [V]
We are grateful to have the technology that we have in order to
make remote education available. The Government have committed a
further £300 million to the tutoring catch-up. We are aware of
many companies that have, in the past, been involved in our
school system. I take inspiration from the noble Lord and will
look at whether now is also the time to ask them to make a
contribution. Many have been successful in sponsoring academies,
et cetera, in the past.
(Lab) [V]
My Lords, the start that has been made by the Government is
commendable. Of course, this money and gifting of laptops to
children are important, but never will that be more important
than on their return to school in March. The young people will
notice the differential between themselves and their colleagues.
Is there any way of speeding up this initiative to endorse the
government policy of helping children to catch up? Speed and
range of facilities provided to the homes of young people will be
crucial so that they can use those laptops at home.
(Con) [V]
In addition to the connectivity that I have outlined, I pay
tribute to the school staff who have helped many parents to use
the equipment that has been provided to access online lessons; we
must not forget their role in skilling up parents to enable this
access for children. Yes, indeed, this is part of the system
going forward, so we will look to make sure that children have
the access that they need to these devices, as well as the
connectivity. We are also looking to invest in rural
connectivity, because, of course, some of the schools have
connectivity issues as well.
(LD) [V]
My Lords, it is good news that our children and young people are
returning to school soon. Moving forward, does the Minister see a
role for virtual learning in future, perhaps as a means of
supporting home-educated children, for example?
(Con) [V]
We are overjoyed at the prospect that on 8 March all our children
will return to school. We have provided these devices at a time
of global disruption of supply, so have done very well in
managing to obtain such a large amount. We are looking at—and
welcome all Peers’ contributions on—how we can ensure that, in
what has been invested in with this £400 million, we take the
best that has developed in these terrible circumstances in terms
of remote education and ensure that children can benefit from it
going forward.
(Con)
[V]
My Lords, I am told that the provision of laptops and tablets has
improved since the first lockdown but that challenges remain even
once a person has been loaned or given one. Will the Minister
look at what can be done to help provide internet access and
training on such devices? I have spoken on this before. Will she
consider adopting the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea’s
approach of seeking internet access in all its social housing? I
commend this approach to the Government for widespread use.
(Con) [V]
My Lords, as I outlined, we are aware of the connectivity issues
for various homes and schools and have provided peer-to-peer
training and support across the school system through our EdTech
demonstrator schools. Some 6,900 schools have been given access
by the department to Microsoft Education or Google Classroom
during the pandemic. In building our infrastructure in future, as
the noble Baroness described, connectivity will be essential.
(Lab) [V]
My Lords, in response to an Oral Question from my noble friend
on 11
February, the Minister stated, as she did earlier today, that the
Government had invested
“more than £400 million to support access to remote education …
including … 1.3 million laptops and tablets for disadvantaged
children and young people.”
While that is certainly welcome, she did not answer the specific
Question asked by my noble friend regarding
“the number of children who are not eligible for face-to-face
teaching who have not been able to access online teaching for
more than 80 per cent of the normal timetable in …
2021.”—[Official Report, 11/2/21; cols. 484-5.]
Will the Minister take this opportunity to answer that Question?
(Con) [V]
The instruction given to schools on the amount of remote
education also included that teachers were to monitor whether
children were engaging with that education. It is not possible
for the department to collect that kind of granular data on a
day-to-day basis. Teachers are in front of the students virtually
and we put the obligation on them to monitor that. If they were
aware that children were not engaging remotely, they had the
ability to bring them into school as a vulnerable child.
