AQW 15607/17-22

Mr Stewart Dickson
Alliance Party
East Antrim

Tabled Date: 02/03/2021
Answered On Date: 11/03/2021
Priority Written: No

Question:
To ask the Minister of Education, pursuant to AQW 14469/17-22, to detail the number of requests that are outstanding for devices or internet access support from schools in East Antrim.

Answer:

I can advise, to date, all requests for digital devices received from the priority years groups have been fulfilled in the East Antrim constituency. The priority year groups were years 12, 14, 7, 11 and 13. Having fully met this demand, I approved the procurement of additional devices and agreed to extend the digital devices lending scheme to eligible learners in other years. To ensure resources are focused where the need is greatest, the remaining year groups were prioritised to allow the additional requests to be processed in a structured and sequential manner.

As the scheme progresses through the agreed priority list, requests will be administered on a year group basis (years 10, 6, 3, 8, 5, 9, 2 and 1) and the initial estimates from colleagues in the Education Authority indicate there shall be a sufficient number of devices to meet the forecasted demand.

At present there are 102 requests from learners in the East Antrim constituency and I have been advised that 26 devices, for Year 10 pupils, were allocated from the week commencing 8 March.

In relation to Wifi devices, there was a request for five Mifi devices within East Antrim and these were to be delivered to learners in the week commencing 15 March.