Alternative Education: Coronavirus

(asked on 25th November 2020) - View Source

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent estimate he has made of the number of students in alternative education provision who are unable to attend school and are required to learn remotely during the covid-19 outbreak; and what steps he is taking to ensure that those students have adequate access to (a) devices and (b) broadband to undertake that learning.


Answered by
Nick Gibb Portrait
Nick Gibb
This question was answered on 30th November 2020

Data on students in state-funded alternative education provision who are unable to attend school is available through this link under “Open status and attendance by type of school or college”: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/attendance-in-education-and-early-years-settings-during-the-coronavirus-covid-19-outbreak.

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 years 3 to 11 whose face-to-face education may be disrupted. Since September, over 100,000 of these have been delivered to schools (including alternative provision 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.

The laptops and tablets are an injection of support to help local authorities, academy trusts and schools to provide access to remote education and online social care.

Local authorities, academy trusts and schools are responsible for distributing the laptops and tablets and are best placed to know which children and young people need access to a device.

The laptops and tablets are owned by the local authorities, academy trust or school who can lend unused laptops and tablets to children and young people who need them most. Once children who have been self-isolating return to school, schools can choose to reallocate devices if other pupils experience disruption to face-to-face education due to COVID-19.

In partnership with mobile network operators, we are also providing access to free additional mobile data for the academic year, offering families flexibility to access the resources that they need the most.

Reticulating Splines