§ Mr. RandallTo ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what provision has been made in the current year to train serving teachers in information and communication technology. [19106]
§ Ms Estelle MorrisUnder the Grants for Education Support and Training programme, £296.8 million has been made available in 1997–98 to support training for serving teachers in all National Curriculum subjects. A subject by subject breakdown is not yet available for this year, but information collected for 1996–97 suggests that approximately 5 per cent. of the funding is spent on IT courses.
In addition, £1.2 million has been provided to fund this year's Multimedia Portable Computers for Teachers pilot, which is aimed at improving serving teachers' competence and confidence in the use of Information and Communications Technology in the classroom.
From early 1999 the first tranche of funds from the People's Lottery will become available to train the UK teaching force in the use of information and communication technologies. This initiative will meet one of the key recommendations of the Stevenson Committee report "Information and Communications Technology in UK Schools" and will be the first attempt to train all teachers in the use of IT.