Measures to Ensure Accessibility to Online Learning is Made Available to Children of Vulnerable Families
Ministry of EducationSpeakers
Summary
This question concerns Mr Gan Thiam Poh's inquiry regarding student computer requests and measures ensuring online learning accessibility for vulnerable families. Minister for Education Lawrence Wong noted that from 2015 to 2019, approximately 24,000 students used the IMDA NEU PC Plus programme and 19,000 polytechnic and ITE students accessed the MOE Opportunity Fund. Schools and institutions provide loans for devices and mobile routers, while lower-income students at higher learning institutes utilize assistance schemes, bursaries, and laptop loans. Under the National Digital Literacy Programme, the timeline for all secondary students to own a personal learning device (PLD) has been accelerated to the end of 2021. Minister for Education Lawrence Wong added that additional support will ensure lower-income households face no out-of-pocket payment for these PLDs.
Transcript
17 Mr Gan Thiam Poh asked the Minister for Education (a) in the past five years, how many students, from Primary school to undergraduates, have made the request for the provision of personal computers to enable online learning; (b) whether there are students who have financial difficulties and network connections to undertake online learning; and (c) what measures have been taken to ensure that students' accessibility to online learning is made available to children of vulnerable families.
Mr Lawrence Wong: For lower-income students from MOE schools, polytechnics, and ITE, IMDA’s NEU PC Plus (NPP) programme and the MOE Opportunity Fund (OF) are two schemes that support them in obtaining digital devices. In the last five years from 2015 to 2019, close to 20,000 students in MOE schools, and 4,000 students from the polytechnics and ITE benefited from the IMDA NPP programme. Further, about 19,000 polytechnic and ITE students benefitted from the OF for the purchase of devices. Students may access more than one scheme.
Besides financial support from OF and NPP, schools and institutions also lean forward to support their students in other ways. For example, they will loan devices and mobile routers to students who need them for their classroom lessons or home-based learning.
At the Institutes of Higher Learning (IHLs), students from lower-income families can also tap on assistance schemes, or the annual allowances from their scholarships and bursaries, to defray the cost of IT devices. In addition, Autonomous University (AU) students also benefit from schemes such as loans to purchase laptops, or may be provided with second-hand laptops. In the past five years, over 350 AU students have benefited from these AU schemes.
COVID-19 has accelerated our efforts in this area. By end-2021, all secondary students will own a personal learning device (PLD) under MOE’s National Digital Literacy Programme, seven years ahead of MOE’s original timeline. Students from lower-income households will also receive additional support so that there will be no out-of-pocket payment for their PLDs.