Five schools across the Greater Manchester area are being given more than £60,000 worth of computer equipment by Huawei so their pupils can join online classes from home.
Huawei is donating 250 Pupil Packs to children who’ve been identified by the Greater Manchester Tech Fund as being most in need of home-schooling technology.
Each Pupil Pack contains a Huawei MatePad T3 10 tablet, a Huawei 4G modem and a sim card pre-loaded with data, courtesy of Huawei’s partners at Three UK. These packs will ensure pupils have both the hardware and connectivity required for remote learning.
It comes as new research from YouGov, commissioned by Huawei, found that one-in-four of UK parents believes a poor-quality internet connection has negatively impacted their children’s ability to complete lessons or schoolwork.
More than half (54 percent) of parents have also spent money on technology to support their children’s learning at home, while households across the UK are being forced to use tactics such as switching off video during calls, tethering to a mobile connection or restricting internet access in the hope of securing a stable connection.
The nationally representative survey of 4,000 UK adults also found that 86 percent of respondents believe the quality of children’s internet connection during remote learning will have a direct impact on their educational attainment.
Each of these schools are receiving 50 Huawei Pupil Packs:
Longdendale High School in Hyde
Sharples School in Bolton
The Derby High School in Bury
Burnage Academy for Boys in Manchester
Byrchall High School in Wigan
Karl Harrison, Head teacher, Burnage Academy for Boys said:
“We serve communities in the most deprived areas of the inner city and some of our parents do not have the means to be able to provide the devices needed at present for their children. The fantastic generosity of Huawei will make an enormous difference to so many of our families and give our boys the opportunity to access remote learning in the pandemic.
This is truly humbling in the most challenging of times and we offer our most sincere and heartfelt thanks.”
Diane Modahl, Lead, Greater Manchester Tech Fund said:
“In Greater Manchester, we believe that our young people deserve every chance to fulfil their potential. We set up the Greater Manchester Tech Fund to support our most vulnerable young people to prevent them being marginalised and at a disadvantage from their peers. I’d like to say a huge thank you to everyone at Huawei, for their generous donation to the GM Tech Fund. Huawei’s donation will help digitally-excluded young people with the technology and connectivity needed to continue their learning at home while schools and colleges remain closed. ”
Victor Zhang, Vice President, Huawei said:
“The shift to remote education has been challenging for all families, but it has been especially difficult for those pupils who don’t have the means to participate in video lessons or interact with other children. No pupils should be left behind, but we all know of school children who, through no fault of their own, are facing barriers to the education they should be receiving.
“Huawei remains committed to improving connectivity across the UK, as we have been for the last 20 years. We are eager to help during the pandemic and so we are really pleased to be donating 250 Huawei Pupil Packs to schools in Greater Manchester, with the support of our partners at Three UK. We hope this donation goes some way to breaking down those barriers and helping school children continue their education at this uniquely challenging time.”
