Education: Coronavirus

(asked on 1st July 2020) - View Source

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment his Department has made of the effect of the covid-19 lockdown on BAME families with children accessing their education from home.


Answered by
Nick Gibb Portrait
Nick Gibb
This question was answered on 7th July 2020

The Government has committed over £100 million to support remote education in England. The Department has published a comprehensive range of guidance to support schools during this time. This includes a list of quality resources, and case studies of remote education practice.

The Oak National Academy was launched on Monday 20 April. It is a new enterprise that has been created by 100 teachers from schools across England. It is providing at least 180 video lessons for free each week, across a broad range of subjects, for every year group from Reception through to Year 10. The BBC has developed a comprehensive new education package, including wellbeing content, available on TV, via the red button and iPlayer and online at BBC Bitesize.

Schools can also apply for Government-funded support to access one of two free-to-use digital education platforms to enable online teaching such as, G Suite for Education or Office 365 Education.

To ensure all children benefit from these resources, we are providing laptops, tablets and 4G wireless routers to vulnerable and disadvantaged children and young people that do not already have a digital device or internet access. As of the end of June, over 202,000 laptops and tablets and over 47,000 4G wireless routers have been delivered to local authorities and academy trusts for distribution to the children and young people that need them.

The Department has launched a service to provide children and young people free access to BT Wi-Fi hotspots. 10,000 families will initially be able to access the scheme. This offer is currently being piloted and will be rolled out across England in the coming months. We are currently working with BT to expand this offer to allow more children to access the internet through their network of BT Wi-Fi hotspots.

The Department has launched a service to provide children and young people free access to BT Wi-Fi hotspots. 10,000 families will initially be able to access the scheme. This offer is currently being piloted and will be rolled out across England in the coming months. We are currently working with BT to expand this offer to allow more children to access the internet through their network of BT Wi-Fi hotspots.

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