Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to support colleges in Milton Keynes to utilise new technologies to (a) tackle workload and (b) improve outcomes.

The department has promised to take up a new era in technology, to back our teachers and deliver better life chances for students across the country.

We are investing millions of pounds in further evidence generation on the safe and effective use of EdTech in colleges. The Edtech Impact Testbed Pilot, announced at Education World Forum, aims to explore how technology can address significant challenges in the education sector. This pilot will test Edtech products and practices already in use in schools and colleges. The goal is to generate evidence of the impact on improving staff workload, pupil outcomes, and inclusivity. The expression of interest for this pilot will launch shortly on Citizen Space and colleges will be able to apply to get involved. The website where colleges can express their interest is available at: https://consult.education.gov.uk/.

In addition, we plan to publish support materials for teachers and leaders to help them with the safe and effective use of artificial intelligence (AI), so dedicated professionals working in education can spend more time doing what they do best and what they enjoy, face to face engagement with students.

The department also provides funding for Jisc, who operate the UK’s ultra-fast national research and education network ‘Janet’, one of the most secure and powerful data networks in the world. This central funding allows colleges to connect on Janet and benefit from a good level of connectivity and cyber security, ensuring that the foundations for technology infrastructure are in place for colleges to be able to harness the opportunities that technology presents.