Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps his Department is taking to support schools with internet connectivity.

The department wants all schools in the country to have access to fast internet. We are committed to continued investment, ensuring that every school has access to modern internet connectivity in the classroom and benefiting thousands more children and teachers.

Recognising the importance of broadband infrastructure in education, we are working with industry and the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) to accelerate the full-fibre internet connectivity rollout to all schools in England. Children in more than 1,000 schools are now enjoying next generation internet speeds thanks to government investment, with around a further 2,000 to be connected by 2025. Most schools in the UK are in urban or suburban areas which already have access to fast full fibre broadband, so this government investment is focused on mostly rural or hard-to-reach areas, to ensure they do not miss out on next-generation speeds.

The government remains committed to investing £5 billion to bring gigabit coverage to the hardest to reach areas and will continue to work with suppliers to accelerate this investment, taking account of industry capacity to bid for, and deliver, contracts to build in uncommercial areas alongside their commercial plans. GigaHubs is one of the programmes DCMS is using to deliver the government’s ambition of gigabit capabilities across the UK by 2030. As part of the wider Project Gigabit, GigaHubs will use up to £110 million to connect public buildings such as rural schools, doctors’ surgeries, and libraries to gigabit broadband. This will allow whole classes of schoolchildren to be online, at once, with no interruptions.

Ensuring good connectivity is just the first step. The actual internet speed experienced is also affected by the technology and Wifi arrangements in place within institutions. We have published a suite of resources to help steer schools, colleges and other providers through the key questions and issues to consider when implementing technology infrastructure, including broadband and local infrastructure issues. To ensure investment made in fast broadband carries through into a high-quality experience in the classroom, we have also set up the ‘connect the classroom’ pilot programme, which is investing up to £30 million to upgrade Wifi for around 1,000 schools.