Schools launch community fundraisers to tackle digital poverty

Photo Credit Jess Connett 2020

Secondary schools are crowdfunding to buy internet dongles and asking for donations of IT equipment to ensure all students can access online learning during lockdown, by Jess Connett. 

Students across the country returned to class for just one day before the government announced schools would close during another national lockdown. Teachers had to switch from preparing for mass Covid-19 testing to moving lessons online with just hours’ notice.

But the digital divide that was highlighted during the first UK lockdown 10 months ago, which left students without reliable internet or devices unable to keep up with classes, has not been adequately tackled. Ofcom estimates that up to 1.78m children in the UK have no home access to a laptop, desktop or tablet, and that 7% of households only access the internet through a mobile phone. Almost one in five households struggled to pay phone and internet bills in 2020.

 The government promised to tackle the issue, and by January 3rd the Department for Education (DfE) had distributed 560,000 free laptops and tablets. But students across Bristol are still struggling to log on.

Tackling the digital divide

“We are currently being inundated with requests for IT equipment for our students who have no device at home,” Cotham School wrote on Twitter on January 5th, the first day schools had to close. They went on to ask for equipment donations to help some of their 1,550 students access online learning.

The school has also launched a crowdfunding campaign to “alleviate digital poverty”, which raised over £10,000 in its first 24 hours. The money will be spent on devices and internet data, and any excess will be paid forward to other local schools.

At Fairfield High School in St Agnes, a similar fundraising campaign has been going on since December. Organised by Fairfield Parents’ Network, a group of around 350 parents, their “urgent appeal” to buy technology equipment has raised £6,000 to date. Funding has been allocated to buy 24 laptops and 20 dongles so far.

BS8 resident Sally Newberry took a computer monitor to Cotham School after seeing the appeal. “We thought it might be useful to students without enough equipment,” she says. “[I’m] feeling particularly sorry for young people in this Covid crisis and very worried about families without the means to study properly at home.”

Within the week, the IT department at Cotham had 30 refurbished computers boxed up and ready to be delivered to students. One person donated their brand-new laptop, accompanied by a heartfelt anonymous note to its future recipient: “When I was young, like you, a university gave me a chance and it changed my life. Now I want to give you a chance too.”

Photo credit Cotham School 2020

“It’s an extra layer of stress for students”

Jason Gillman is a newly qualified English teacher who joined Fairfield in October 2020. He is also part of a steering group for the onelaptop.org inclusion campaign, which is petitioning the government to tackle digital poverty nationally.

Online teaching at Fairfield has changed from the first lockdown in March, when teachers were “grappling” with Microsoft Teams. “It was quite a steep learning curve,” Jason says. Now he is teaching more live video lessons, rather than setting assignments for students to complete in their own time. “It’s much more interactive. We can track progress better as well.”

But without adequate technology, the higher demands of video calling mean students miss out on teaching tools Jason uses in his lessons: “It’s an extra layer of stress for students. If I say I’m going to share my screen and put a question in the chat box, on a mobile phone you can’t access the chat box when you’re sharing a screen.

““Students have already had a very disruptive year. Not having access to IT that allows them to continue their education consistently – their grades may slip; they may fall behind. It’s really difficult to catch up without the tech.””

Fairfield is currently only open for the children of key workers, and for those with special educational needs. A small number of staff are on site to look after the students, who use the school’s computers to access the same online learning as their classmates at home.

The government says not having adequate technology at home makes a child ‘vulnerable’ and gives them the right to go into school during lockdown. “My issue with that is we’re in the middle of a pandemic,” Jason says. “Increasing students means increasing staff and that undermines the whole point of schools being closed.

“That’s not addressing the root cause, which is the digital divide.”

Help for internet access promised

Bristol West Labour MP Darren Jones signed an open letter sent to Boris Johnson on January 4th, criticising the lack of help for the 880,000 children in the UK with only a mobile internet connection – or no internet at all.

The following day, companies including Three, Virgin Mobile and BT’s EE confirmed they would provide free internet to families without home broadband, or who are struggling to afford additional data. However, the offer varies between providers and only applies to existing customers.

News also broke this week that education secretary Gavin Williamson “handed back” vouchers sent by BT last June, for families to access free broadband for at least six months. The telecoms company blamed the DfE for failing to distribute the vouchers to those in need.

“[Internet] access is fundamental,” says Joel Stokes, a member of Fairfield Parents’ Network whose daughter is in Year 8 at Fairfield. “Without it, there’s a lot of families who are effectively isolated from things other people take for granted. It’s widening the gap between the people who have and the people who don’t have.”

Critics have long been calling for better internet provision. The National Union of Education has been pushing for families on Universal Credit to receive free internet since the summer. The Labour Party’s 2019 General Election pledge that broadband would be nationalised and made free was much-derided in the press; this week, Labour MPs asked the government to prioritise internet connectivity.

“I don’t think it should be falling to the school,” Joel says of the current pressures to get students online. “I think the school is doing everything it can but should have had much more support from higher up. I am a bit peed off that the government are financing a lot of other people in the Covid response. It doesn’t feel that schools are up there in the top list of beneficiaries.”

This week, more government contracts to supply schools with free laptops were revealed to have been given to a company co-founded by a Conservative Party donor.

Joel says the crowdfunding efforts have brought the Parent’s Network together, “like a large extended family”:

“It does make you realise that localised community action is really beneficial. But the more people do that, there will be less funding coming down from the government – outsourcing of the responsibility.”

The school will be keeping the appeal going “until every child has good internet access”, Joel says. “Let’s not wait for government help.”