New Technology and Education
Issue>
- The Prime Minister's address to the Becta conference on new technology and education including home access to broadband.
Key points
- Aspiration is central to our approach - and the big choice at the next election will be between an age of aspiration or an age of austerity.
- The Prime Minister will today make clear his ambition for every family in Britain to have access to broadband linked to their children's school. He will also promise that all parents will be able to benefit from online reporting, which we are guaranteeing in the Education Bill being debated in parliament today.
- The Prime Minister said:
"As every family becomes a broadband family, every home will be linked to a school. For those finding it difficult to afford this, today I can announce the nationwide roll out of our home access programme to get laptops and broadband at home for almost 300,000 families. That promise is backed up by a £300 million investment that will see, by March next year, free laptops and broadband for 270,000 low income families across the country.
"We realise that for parents to influence and engage in the education of their children they need rich, varied and easily accessible information on the progress, behaviour and attendance of their children. That is why we have said that from 2010 all secondary schools - and from 2012 all primary schools - will guarantee reporting online to parents."
- This follows the launch last week by Peter Mandelson of our consultation on super-fast broadband - which will boost Britain's global competitiveness through providing higher productivity, increased innovation and greater consumer choice.
- Later today, Ed Balls will launch a public consultation on the pupil and parent guarantees provided for in the Schools Bill. These create new entitlements for pupils and parents. The Guarantees mix provisions which create legal requirements on schools and local authorities with other provisions which are equivalent to statutory guidance. The Bill also includes provision for the Local Government Ombudsman to investigate a pupil or parent's complaint that there has been a failure to deliver the guarantees to avoid the need for litigation.
- The important new entitlements include:
- One-to-one catch-up tuition for primary school children who are behind and falling further behind;
- One-to-one or small-group catch-up tuition for children in Year 7 who are behind and falling further behind, supported by a progress check which is reported to parents;
- Every secondary pupil will have personal tutoring, and
- New, strengthened Home School Agreements for all pupils.
- The Tories have refused to protect frontline services like schools, and they offer a gamble not a guarantee to young people. They have refused to back our our school leaver's guarantee of a place in education or training for every 16 and 17 year old who wants one.
Return to Top of page