Whose turn with the laptop?
Schools in the United Kingdom(UK) are closed until at least March 8th. Effectively, most pupils have not attended school for the best part of the year. Parents are being asked to, effectively in a lot of cases, become teacher substitutes. Home schooling is the current buzzword with online teaching being championed as the main provider. (That brings back memories of the early days of the Open University, when a lot of lessons were delivered via television). If this had happened some 50 years ago when I was of school age, no Internet access, no computer, no mobile phone, with respect to my parents, they couldn’t have home schooled me.
Boris Johnson the prime minister has just written an open letter praising parents for the work they have done in home schooling. Sadly, what the pandemic has demonstrated is another factor in the inequality present in the UK. The haves and the have-nots regarding access to online learning.
There are still a large number of pupils having to work from home without access to a laptop. The household may only have one device which is probably being used by the parents, also working from home. (Juggling home office working and schooling children must be a nightmare) Pupils in families living on low wages or benefits may not have a computer, let alone Internet access. According to Ofcom…
