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PM announces New Educational Technology Allowances

September 23, 2008 Posted by Kevin in : Bristol , trackback

In his keynote speech to the Labour Party Conference in Manchester this afternoon Gordon Brown unveiled a £300m scheme aimed at ensuring every child in the country has access to a PC and connectivity at home.

There are currently 1.4 million school pupils who don’t have internet access from home. The Prime Minister said “We want to enable all families to use the internet to link back to their children’s school….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.”.

The allowances will be worth up to £700 per household to pay for broadband connectivity, technical support and equipment.

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Comments»

1. woodsy - September 24, 2008

While Mr Brown's sentiments are laudable, I wonder if he's aware of the following, as published on the DC10plus blog:

The statistics also show a digital refusenik attitude is growing among Britons, of those households that do not have internet access, a larger proportion of respondents said they do not need it or do not want it than two years ago. While other reasons for eschewing the web — such as access or equipment costs being too high — showed little or no increase.

Could the digital refusenik attitude be a response to being lectured daily by the Nanny State - top down fashion - and bearing in mind that Nanny knows best?

Moreover, I wonder how many households are unable to sign up for internet access with ISPs because of a poor credit history or because they are in temporary accommodation and, finally, how much of the £700 per household allowance will end up augmenting the bank balances of rich, powerful multinationals such as Microsoft and BT? I think we should be told.

2. Stephen Hilton - September 24, 2008

Woodsy, surely you would agree that there is a difference between not being able to afford to get connected and not wanting to. As to which companies will gain financially, you could always ask the PM via YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3gusfHO_vY