Photo: Jim Sneddon

A free laptop scheme, in the interest of bridging academic excellence between wealthy and poor students, has been launched in the United Kingdom. The Home Access programme, which is in its pilot phase, is set to cost £300 million, and will provide computers to 270,000 English families.

The Home Access Scheme

The Home Access scheme, as it is known, includes a laptop, which is kept by the recipient family, and a time-limited broadband connection. After a year has passed, the family decides for themselves whether the broadband is worth funding so as to keep it live.

Access to the Internet and information technology is having a greater socioeconomic impact in people’s lives as well as in education, and the UK government is not blind to this. The free laptop scheme, however, cannot be offered to all families that meet the criteria, yet a grant has been provided for families with children aged seven to fourteen to purchase the package from pre-approved suppliers.

Online Learning

This initiative comes at a time when the Internet has made high quality education accessible to many at a fraction of its usual price. Services like Academic Earth offer lectures from the world’s most celebrated universities for free. iTunes U, an Apple service, has a similar offering which is both available to all educators to share information, as well as students to download the content. A free laptop plus free or cheaply available educational services can only yield positives.

Towards Better Grades

Prime Minister Gordon Brown first spoke of such a scheme over a decade ago. Back in 1999, when he was still chancellor, the scheme, which was supported by sixty companies, involved tax break incentives for organisations that provided computers to their employees. Today the scheme is at its most ambitious level, as well as at its most accessible. If the Institution of Fiscal Studies’ research is accurate in saying home laptops could lead to a two grade improvement in a subject at GCSE, then this initiative is a great investment.