HELP US GET COMPUTERS TO SCHOOLKIDS
It’s a national crisis: Up to a million children with no access to laptops they need to study at home. Now we’re asking readers and businesses to...
AN ambitious crusade to deliver laptops to lockdown pupils who need them is launched today.
up to a million UK schoolchildren are struggling with lessons at home because they cannot work online. now the daily Mail is swinging into action for Mail Force – the celebrated charity that gifted PPe to the nHs. The newspaper is today kick-starting
its campaign to raise funds for Mail Force’s Computer for Kids initiative, which aims to help prevent pupils falling further behind.
The intervention was hailed by Education Secretary Gavin Williamson, all the main teaching unions, and the Children’s Commissioner for England.
England rubgy star Maro Itoje also speaks out in the Mail today about the need to help poorer children who are falling victim to a growing digital divide in lockdown.
Mr Williamson said: ‘We know how difficult this past year has been for young people who have had their education disrupted by the pandemic, which is why we have provided laptops and tablets at such speed and scale to those who need them the most.
‘The Daily Mail’s support in building on the aid provided by the Government can only be a good thing and I welcome the undoubted generous response of Mail readers, ensuring even more young people can benefit from a device for both home education and into the future.’
Mail Force will help companies recycle old computers for school use – and is set to help fund new laptops and tablets – so the Mail is asking its famously generous readers to contribute whatever they can towards the costs. Around £15 could pay to refurbish a laptop for a child in danger of missing vital weeks of education.
Itoje – tipped as a future captain of his country – has been leading a personal campaign to tackle the digital divide. He told the Mail: ‘ We must strive for every child to have an equal education because it is the one gift that stays with them for life and opens up their world.’
Unlike the first lockdown, schools are now mandated to provide three to five hours of lessons per pupil every day – yet lots of youngsters cannot get online. Ofcom estimated last year there were 1.78million children in the UK without access to a device for online learning. Since then, the Government has ordered 1.3million laptops for pupils in England alone. So far, 800,000 have been delivered.
Mail Force aims to speed things up. It is set to help fund new kit and has also identified a rich alternative source of laptops for schools – firms upgrading their equipment who want to donate 50 or more of their old machines.
The charity’s expert partner, IT specialists Computacenter, will collect them for free, securely wipe them and install software to make them homeschool ready.
Last night, former Education Secretary Lord Blunkett warned of a ‘new kind of educational apartheid’ created by the digital divide, and said: ‘Quite simply, our children need laptops if they are to learn. That is why I’m backing the Mail’s campaign to get the equipment, connectivity and conditions right for youngsters to have everything they need – computers, software and support – to be able to learn at home and begin catching up in the months and years ahead.’
Anna Webb, executive head of Newbridge Junior School and Penhale Infant School in Portsmouth said: ‘This is a brilliant campaign and will make a huge difference to us.
‘We got 116 laptops from the DfE which was great but we have over 600 pupils across our two schools and around 50 per cent are still trying to access lessons from a mobile phone.’
Last year, Mail Force donated an incredible 42million items of PPE to the NHS, care homes and charity sector frontlines. The campaign won a public service award and the Mail was hailed for holding the Government to account at the same time as helping to solve the problem.
‘Wrong side of the digital divide’
FASHIoN firms claim the cost of clothes purchases being returned from EU countries is so high it might be cheaper to burn them rather than ship them back.
They are being hit with three separate ‘Brexit fees’ plus red tape, according to the UK Fashion & Textile Association.
The expenses – for export clearance, import charges and import VAT – are due to Britain no longer being in the EU’s customs union, which allows goods to move freely without taxes.
Some clothes companies are now considering stopping trading across the Channel, as just under a third of all online orders are returned.
UKFT boss Adam Mansell said: ‘ It’s cheaper for retailers to write off the cost of the goods than dealing with it all, either abandoning or potentially burning them. Lots of large businesses don’t have a handle on it, never mind smaller ones.’
At the same time British shoppers who order from online European retailers are facing crippling extra charges.
Londoner Ellie Huddleston, 26, pictured, found import charges added up to £82 for a £200 coat and another £58 on blouses she paid £180 for.
She was notified about the fees by the two courier firms. Miss Huddleston said: ‘I sent both back without paying the extra fees and won’t be ordering anything from Europe again any time soon.’
Lisa Walpole, from Norfolk, was told to pay £121 on a £236 clothes order from onepiece.com in Norway. And Helen Kara, from Uttoxeter in Staffordshire, was hit with a bill for £93 on £292 of bed linen from Urbanara.co.uk, based in Berlin.
Anyone receiving an item posted from the EU worth more than £39 may now face a bill for import VAT, with many items charged at 20 per cent. For goods over £135, customs duties may also apply.
The charges are usually collected by the courier with customers asked to pay before delivery.
on top of these UK government taxes, most couriers add a handling fee for the paperwork. Many buyers find it difficult to work out the charges.
David Jinks, head of consumer research at ParcelHero, said: ‘Some EU stores have stopped selling to the UK entirely because of the mess.’