Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps his Department is taking to tackle the digital divide in access to remote learning for school and college students.

The Department is providing over £400 million to support access to remote education and online social care. We have secured 1.3 million laptops and tablets and have already delivered over 1.2 million of these to schools, colleges, trusts, local authorities, and further education providers to support disadvantaged children and young people who would not otherwise have access to a digital device.

The Department are making deliveries all the time and expect to achieve our overall commitment of delivering 1.3 million devices by the end of the spring term. The Government is providing this significant injection of laptops and tablets on top of an estimated 2.9 million already owned by schools before the start of the COVID-19 outbreak.

The Department has extended support to disadvantaged 16-to-19 year olds, including those in further education. Schools with sixth forms, colleges and other further education institutions are being invited to order laptops and tablets to further support disadvantaged students to access remote education.

The Department has partnered with mobile operators to provide free data to help disadvantaged children go online as well as delivering over 70,000 4G wireless routers for pupils without connection at home.

The Department is grateful to EE, Lycamobile, O2, Sky Mobile, Smarty, Tesco Mobile, Three, Virgin Mobile, BT Mobile, Vodafone, iD Mobile and giffgaff for supporting the mobile data offer. We are currently engaged with additional mobile network operators and continue to invite a range of mobile network providers to support the offer.

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 have made access to BBC Bitesize resources free from the end of January 2021.