Coram Voice welcomes the Governments decision, announced yesterday (19 April 2020), to offer technological support for disadvantaged young people during the Covid-19 lockdown.
The move will see disadvantaged children across England, care leavers, children with social worker support and year 10 pupils, who sit GCSEs next year, receive free laptops and tablets that will allow them to study online while schools are closed.
The Government will also provide 4G routers for access to the internet – where those families do not already have mobile or broadband internet. The country’s major telecommunications providers will also make it easier for families to access selected educational resources by temporarily exempting these sites from data charges.
Brigid Robinson, Managing Director of Coram Voice, says of the initiative: “We welcome this support for all young people from the Government.
“We are particularly pleased to see care leaver’s needs during lockdown being addressed. We recently released a report highlighting that many care leavers are not being supported by their local authorities to get laptops or internet access when studying. The need for this support is even greater during the current crisis. We therefore feel making laptops, data and the internet available for care leavers more accessible is a positive.”
The Government will also launch “The Oak National Academy, which will provide 180 video lessons each week, across a broad range of subjects, for every year group from Reception through to Year 10.