Disadvantaged pupils offered free data in bid to tackle digital divide
Joe Lepper
Wednesday, January 6, 2021
The Department for Education is partnering with broadband providers to offer disadvantaged families free data to support home learning during the latest Covid-19 lockdown.
But education experts and children’s campaigners believe the move does not go far enough to address the digital divide disadvantaged pupils face.
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Through the partnership schools are being urged to identify children without internet access to request the free data through the government’s Get Help with Technology programme.
Providers involved in the programme include EE, which announced this week that it is offering disadvantaged families is 20GB of free data per month.
We're partnering with @educationgovuk to provide free data to disadvantaged families and support remote learning.
— EE (@EE) January 5, 2021
Schools can identify a child without internet access and request free data through the DfE’s Get Help with Technology programme.
More here: https://t.co/JOQAc6Vba5 pic.twitter.com/xvxv2R1zlO
Also involved are broadband providers Three, Sky Mobile, SMARTY, Tesco Mobile and Virgin Mobile. This free data offer is available until July 2021.
The move comes as Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced this week that schools in England will close until at least February half-term as part of a fresh national lockdown to curb rates of Covid-19 infection.
The Oak National Academy, which launched in April last year to provide online learning, is concerned about the “punitive costs of mobile data”.
It is calling on broadband providers to take further action than the free data offer and waive all data costs for education websites, to ensure “all children can learn throughout lockdown”.
It cites Ofcom’s 2020 Technology Tracker figures that shows around a million children are accessing online learning from a parent’s mobile phone.
This is leaving many disadvantaged families struggling to access online education due to “expensive pay as you go mobile tariffs, whilst better off families have comprehensive broadband deals”, says Oak.
Based on pay as you go data charges, four Oak lessons use 1,000 MB of data and would cost a family £97 a day.
Around half a million children have no access to the internet at all, Ofcom’s figures also show.
“The cost of internet access to the poorest families is the single biggest issue that is preventing all children being able to access learning during lockdown,” said Oak principal Matt Hood.
“What’s more, once again it’s the poorest families that are hit hardest, with the risk of being locked out of lockdown learning altogether. We simply cannot allow this digital divide to determine the education that children receive – we need a universal solution and we need it now.
“It’s time for the big four Telecoms firms to step up and do their bit. It’s very simple: make education sites zero-rated. This cannot happen soon enough and we would urge them to do the right thing and to do it quickly.”
Earlier this week children’s charities and MPs joined forces to urge the government to ensure all children have access to technology needed for remote learning amid Covid-19 restrictions.
A letter from the group, written by Labour MP Siobhan McDonagh to the Prime Minister, says that Covid-19 lockdown has “exposed the digital divide” disadvantaged families face.
/umbraco/Our urgent letter calling on Sutton Trust, Child Poverty Action Group, Young Enterprise and the Social Mobility Foundation.
Education select committee chair Robert Halfon and former Prime Minister Tony Blair are among other signatories.
The letter warns that disadvantaged children “were likely to be behind their peers even before the pandemic”.
It also backs the Oak Academy’s recommendation for education websites to be free for all children and calls for the setting up of a register of children who are without devices and connectivity needed to learn remotely.
Yesterday, the BBC announced a return to free educational programme available for all children including those unable to access the internet.
New government guidelines on the latest Covid-19 lockdown also state that children "who may have difficulty engaging with remote education at home (for example due to a lack of devices or quiet space to study)" can attend school as a vulnerable child.