Vulnerable pupils received thousands of laptops in lockdown

The Department for Education provided 200,000 devices to local authorities and school trusts between May and July to help children access remote learning while schools were closed.

But the office of the Children's Commissioner for England said the £100 million scheme, aimed at care leavers and pupils with social workers, failed to help hundreds of thousands more children.

Figures obtained by the organisation show Essex County Council ordered 2,102 laptops and tablets, the maximum number they were allowed to.

Simone Vibert, senior policy analyst at the CCO, said 9 per cent of families in the UK do not have a laptop, desktop or tablet at home – a "digital divide" that became more apparent during the Covid-19 crisis.

She said: “During this pandemic, proper access to the internet is not a luxury for children having to learn at home, it is a necessity.

"The Government needs to ensure that all children are able to access education in the coming weeks and months, hopefully in school, but also remotely if that becomes their only option.”

Though the devices were "very welcome", the Children's Commissioner Office estimated there are 540,000 children in groups eligible for the scheme, meaning many more missed out.

In addition, 20,000 were set aside for disadvantaged Year 10 pupils who were singled out because of concerns they would fall behind in preparing for their GCSEs in the coming school year – with 118 allocated in Essex.

But the Children's Commissioner Office said this overlooked the needs of disadvantaged children in every other year group, and even the Government's planned extension of the scheme to years 3-11 may be "insufficient".

Essex was also allocated 337 4G hotspot devices, and 29 for its Year 10 students.

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