BT has launched its ‘Lockdown Learning’ initiative, pledging to support students, teachers and parents alike in the delivery of remote education whilst schools remain closed.
Education providers were forced to close their doors from Tuesday 5 January as the government plunged the nation into a third national lockdown – a move they hope will help to stem the spread of coronavirus.
The new restrictions will be enforced for at least seven weeks, subject to review in the February half term.
In light of this, the British telecoms provider has committed to helping those in need and maintaining access to learning for disadvantaged students. As part of the scheme, free unlimited mobile data will be made available to EE and BT mobile customers who are eligible for the Department for Education’s (DfE) Get Help with Technology programme, rather than the 20GB offering perviously announced. BT is also pledging free BT WiFi vouchers to schools and charity partners to pass on to the parents and carers of children lacking the connectivity required to access home schooling digital resources.
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Additionally, the company aims to remove all mobile data charges for some of the popular educational websites before the end of January.
Marc Allera, CEO of BT Group’s Consumer division, commented: “As a national champion, we want to ensure no one is left behind while face-to-face teaching is on hold.
“That’s why we’re launching our ‘Lockdown Learning’ support scheme, which offers a number of different ways for. disadvantaged school children to get connectivity support, across both our fixed and mobile networks.
“We’ve been working closely with the DfE since the start of the pandemic to help kids get connected, and we’re now stepping up our partnership to offer unlimited data, as well as working harder on getting free WiFi passes into the hands of those families and kids that need them.
“We’re also aiming to zero-rate some of the most popular learning portals this month, to ensure critical learning can continue even when data access runs out. We’ll reveal more on this in the coming week.”
