By Nick Heath, 23 September 2008 16:23
NEWS
Nearly every family in the UK is to have access to broadband at home under plans laid out by Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
In his keynote speech at the Labour Party Conference on Tuesday, Brown outlined a £300m programme which will see the government pay for broadband connections, software and computers for all children aged between seven and 19 in low income and jobless families.
The scheme will be rolled out from this November with around one million households entitled to a home access voucher over the next three years.
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Brown said in the speech: "We want to enable all families to use the internet to link back to their children's school - and so [schools minister] Jim Knight is announcing that we will fund over a million extra families to get online, on the way to our ambition of Britain leading the world with more of our people than any other major economy able to access the internet and broadband."
Currently, around one-third of all UK homes are without a web connection.
Knight said in a statement: "Home access to ICT has educational, economic and social benefits. In fact it is now clear that pupils without internet access are at a disadvantage to their peers.
"Home access is increasingly becoming an essential part of a good education and having a computer with internet access should be seen as equally essential as having a school bag, a uniform or a pen and paper."
A recent report by the Office for National Statistics found children with home broadband typically achieve better GCSE results.
Comments
There are 11 comments. Join the discussion
1. anonymous
Saw this on the BBC News last night and they were quoting £700 per 'poor child'.
Niot sure how they can justify this amount of money as...
Joe Public Prices:
Ausus ePC901 Windows XP is £280 from Amazon. Pink one for the girls maybe?
Asus eeeBox is likely to be similar.
Where the £700 per child comes from is a mystery to me.
Although this is a fair idea, you can see the issue of post warranty repairs, anti-virus, general support becoming an absolute nightmare unless an organisation with a large remote support ability join in. Is this were the rest of the money will go ?
As with most of these Politburo driven social engineering schemes, I'm sure if you don't quality for Full Tax Credits or the childcare element, you will get bugger all assistance. There are many low to middle income 'nuclear' families who are struggling in the current 'lack of regulation' created financial crisis would like a little bit of assistance with
Computers
Broadband
Travel to School (if you did not choose your local crappy school)
School Meals
.....etc
2. Roger Huffadine
"link back to their children's schools" - err for what exactly?
err - where is the money for the schools to develop the hosting software and applications?
err - ever tried to engage some of the marginalised of our society in a conversation about their child's progress at school?
and - I didn't know that the government provides school bags for the poorer families.
3. anonymous
Giving my money, for a service that I have to pay for. Free for all..........
4. Karen Challinor
I guess there is an election coming as he's buttering up the core voters
£300m won't go very far though
and I'd love to know how he intends to regulate it so it's just for schoolwork, or that the equipment doesn't get sold to put food on the table
5. Richard
It'd be better if Ofcom made sure the everyone could have an affordable landline:
At present, BT's minimum term for a landline phone contract is 12 months. Ending this contract early costs at least 70 Pounds.
Most land-line contracts require a successful credit check.
Most ADSL contracts are also for at least 12 months.
But standard "short-hold" tenancies are for a 6-month term.
In a rented property, these contracts cannot be passed from tenant to tenant; these contracts cannot be "held" by the landlord and "sub-let" to the tenant.
So, anyone in short-term rented accommodation or with a poor credit history is unable to get a landline phone or ADSL.
The government and the Ofcom should resolve this contract problem, rather than going for silly headlines.
6. anonymous
Sony PS3 'Internet Computer' £289
Logitech Bluetooth Keyboard £60
Samsung 32" HD Monitor £370
Free Boradband from CarPhone Warehouse £0
Total £720 (today's prices on Amazon. A XBox360 Elite even comes in undet the £700)
Now where is my 'poor voucher' ---> Kerching :-)
7. anonymous
Time to go up the sewers and the government could get some support fromVirgin and sky I am fed up with adverts for services I cannot get because I live in the country.the sooner I can plug into my bog the better!
8. anonymous
If you are in rental properties you can 'take BT with you' without any contract restrictions - just do a house move with them.
12 months contracts are common - Mobile Phones, Car Insurance, Breakdown cover.
What would be a boon to many people, esp. those who have had cable, would be if BT got rid of the £120 line installation fee in exchange for say an 18 month contract.
I know several people who are pig sick of Virgin Media and want to move back to a normal line, but despite the property having had a line install at some point in time BT have 'pulled the cables' to use elsewhere and want to stiff you a fresh £120 line install fee.
--
Back on thread, for the poor who don't have a phone line is the Government to pay for a phone line install per property as well, or will they maybe do a mesh of WiFi hoptspots for access ?
9. anonymous
I'd love to know their criteria for being 'poor'.
Gordon is definitely looking to buy votes...not a smart way to spend £300M in the current economic climate...the 'poor' could always use the PCs in the library.
Are they 'poor' 'cos they can't be bothered to go to work? Great!...let's give them more reason to stay at home. Why not top up their Sky subscriptions to add every channel and throw in some games consoles and all the games...no point in them getting bored.
This is not a go at the truely disadvantaged...growing up, I did without a lot of things that other kids had. I think it will end up mismanaged (like everything else) and the not so 'poor' will be laughing. Just another hair-brained scheme of the Government...like the free-money savings accounts to encourage the 'disadvantaged' to save....I'd love to know how fast all that money got withdrawn from the accounts and what it was spent on!...
10. Mango Putney
Time to stop the handouts and force them to fill their hour with constructive labour rather than using up the bandwidth that the rest of us pay for.
11. louvaine
this is a great idea but please tell me ho wi go about getting this for my yr 8 child