Government plans to send laptops to homeschooling kids have fallen desperately short

Less than half of students in need have benefited from a £400 million laptop spree, Stewart Mitchell discovers

The government’s plans to get laptops into the hands of every homeschooling child who needs one have fallen desperately short, according to experts.

The government rollout of laptops, tablets and networking hardware to underprivileged children who don’t have their own equipment – estimated by Ofcom to be up to 1.78 million students – leaves pupils trailing their peers and forces them back into schools that are supposed to be closed for all but key workers’ children.

“My students are being hamstrung by this [third] lockdown, possibly more than the first because of lessons being on [Microsoft] Teams,” John Bohan, a teacher at the comprehensive Bishop of Hereford’s Bluecoat School, told

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“Students are now being set work through lessons that need explanation, whereas in March to July [2020] we just set work they could access at their own pace,” Bohan Boha explained. “Without internet access to Teams, the work is not accessible and the stress and wellbeing issues for my Year 11 students is off the charts. As a teacher it’s heartbreaking.”

Bohan says his school has received no new laptops to date, leaving the school without enough to go around. “To my knowledge, we have not received any additional hardware support, we are sending out school laptops from the portable laptop stations across the school,” he said.

“We have to prioritise which students to loan them to.”

“I know that, with my form, at least five students are accessing lessons on their mobile phones,” he added. “Across the school, that could be over 200 students.”

The government has pledged a total of £400 million in a series of contracts since April 2020, but as home learning continued many pupils were still waiting. “Ten months later, hundreds of thousands of children are still without,” public interest group the Good Law Project said in a letter announcing legal action against the Department for Education (DfE) over the issue.

“It appears that in total only 560,000 have been distributed and this number will rise to 750,000 by 15 January – this is neither what has been promised nor what is needed.” eded.”

According to the DfE, its contractors had delivered 702,226 02,226 devices by the time schools locked down again in January, but the Good Law Project claims that delivery deadlines were missed in June and October 2020. Many schools also saw their allocations temporarily slashed by 80% last October, at the very time teachers were being told they had to provide live lessons.

Critics are concerned that the government’s decision cision to award the vast majority of device contracts racts to Computacenter – which was founded by long-term rm Conservative party donor Sir Philip Hulme – has delivered poor value for money.

“Most schools got about 10% of what they wanted from April through to June, but a cheap tablet would serve the purpose for what most schools are doing, which makes it even more curious why they have now handed out millions more in contracts through a Tory party donor,” said Karam Bales, an executive of the National Education Union. “I don’t understand why we are not asking for our money back.

“There’s no reason why everyone couldn’t have had what they needed by the end of April.”

Although bulk-buying via Computacenter may have offered economies of scale, there are concerns that adding another layer of margin into deals might have negated any benefits. What’s more, Computacenter isn’t alone when it comes to buying in bulk. “Schools have buying consortia, through their local authority or academy, so… there will be