In a move that might well get buried amongst other announcements and the general speculation about his job Gordon Brown will today announce a new £300 million project to give 1.4 million children access to the internet at home.
This will consist of schools distributing vouchers worth between £100 and £700 to appropriate families and the vouchers will also be available for relevant software and in some cases computer hardware.
As well as helping the pupils access the internet to help with their studies and gain general IT skills it is hoped that wider access to the internet for the parents will make it easier for schools to maintain contact with the parents on issues such as homework and behavior issues.
This is great news as we here at Beanbag HQ strongly believe that there is an important role for the internet in education (alongside more traditional face-to-face learning rather than replacing it) but the key to the success of that is increasingly access to the internet and particularly broadband access. Creating websites that will engage and hold the attention of children requires careful use of the latest web technologies and these require a good broadband connection to make the most of them.
In this period of economic crisis it is heartening to see education and technology rising to the top of the Governments agenda.
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