Thousands of children in schools across Wales are being left behind due to a lack of access to different tech while not in school. Children are away from education for six weeks during the summer holidays, and the Digital Poverty Alliance say it can have a massive impact on poorer children who don’t have laptops and reliable internet access.
00:00What we're seeing is a digital divide that is ever-growing and a two-tier society.
00:05Some people who are enjoying all the benefits of digitisation
00:09and others who are finding that they're entirely left behind in that rush to move everything online.
00:15It's the summer holidays, so schools are closed for six weeks,
00:18but that doesn't mean that the learning has stopped completely.
00:20Homework, extracurricular tasks, studying for exams next year.
00:24Kids might not be physically in school,
00:25but they still need the tools that they have when they're there at their disposal.
00:29Things like laptops, decent Wi-Fi connection, and other tech is important to so many young learners.
00:35And there are concerns that those without the means to access those are at risk of falling behind.
00:40Over half of low-income families in Wales are saying that their child is going to struggle to access a device that's suitable for learning.
00:49So that would be something with a keyboard or an iPad or something like that.
00:53And or they won't have access to reliable internet at home.
00:58What will this mean over the summer holidays?
01:01It means that children are less likely to engage with any homework or summer learning tasks that might have been set for them.
01:0846% of Welsh teachers told us that they personally know pupils who are going to fall behind over the summer holidays.
01:17Wales is particularly affected mainly because there's a direct correlation between poverty and digital poverty.
01:22We have a poorer population in Wales, so thousands of children are affected.
01:26We often see this around the former coalfield communities.
01:31We provide a lot of support in places like Neithportalbot and Bridge End,
01:35where families simply can't access the kind of kit and connectivity that they need.
01:41And again, across Mid Wales, North Wales, places like Wrexham, actually people just don't have the money necessarily to be able to buy this,
01:50which places more pressure on parents who are already struggling to be able to provide, put food on the table, fuel for the house.
01:58And now we've got this digital element as well, where schools are just expecting parents to be able to afford this during the summer and indeed year round.
02:08Elizabeth says that she wants organisations to be involved where they can,
02:12to offload their old laptops and other tech so it can be used again by young people for their schoolwork.
02:17But there's also a big role that businesses can play, and it's something we're doing more and more in Wales,
02:23is saying to businesses, give us the old kit that you maybe have had for a couple of years and now you're refreshing it.
02:30Just because it's too old for your team members doesn't mean that's not going to be absolutely transformational for a family.
02:36Just because it's not the absolute latest enterprise edition, you know, actually for a child, that's going to be fantastic.
02:42So we can get these recycled in Wales, we get those actually refurbished down in Tonypandy,
02:51and then we can get those back out to families who are always incredibly relieved to be able to get their hands on a piece of kit.
