INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATIONS TECHNOLOGY (ICT)

HC Deb 19 December 2002 vol 396 cc71-2WS

ICT is at the heart of universal access, educational transformation and preparing children, young people and adults for the knowledge economy. It has the potential to

• Raise standards
• Widen access to lifelong learning
• Engage poor performers, and
• Build the skills needed for work and life.

Our investment in new technologies since 1998 has already produced significant achievements. These include NGfL in schools; the National Learning Network, UK Online Centres and Ufi/learndirect in post-16 learning; and the eUniversities project, and the high speed teaching and research JANET network in higher education.

The 2002 Spending Review allocations which I have already announced will enable us to build on these achievements and reap the benefits of ICT for teachers and learners across all sectors. Our further investment in developing ICT infrastructure, content and skills means that we will support ICT programmes totalling, once matched funding from LEAs is included, over £820/858/920 million across the next three years on top of the investment by institutions themselves. For schools, Spending Review funding means that we will

• Connect all schools to the Internet at broadband speeds
• Deliver digital resources into the classroom through Curriculum Online
• Ensure that even more teachers have personal access to ICT, and
• Further embed the use of ICT across the curriculum to help deliver our standards and re-modelling agendas.

The majority of funding will go to schools through the Standards Fund and, including LEA matched funding, spending on ICT will have increased to £660 million by 2005–06.

In post-16 learning, the high speed JANET network will be extended beyond FE colleges to adult and community institutions, enabling access across the LSC sector. Additionally, a post-16 equivalent of curriculum online will make high quality digital content and resources for e-learning available to lecturers and students. £14 million of additional resources will be provided in 2005–06 to ensure we continue to have a sustainable network of UK Online Centres. In higher education, further investment in the high speed network will bring even greater capacity and resilience for this world-class infrastructure, and enable a smooth transition to the new Super JANET by 2006.