IT Capacity in Schools in North Wales

Part of 1. Questions to the Minister for Education – in the Senedd at 1:35 pm on 9 January 2019.

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Photo of Kirsty Williams Kirsty Williams Liberal Democrat 1:35, 9 January 2019

Well, Llyr, you are right—it is the individual responsibility of individual schools to ensure that they have the resources within those schools, and should plan accordingly. However, I'm aware that not all schools find themselves in the same position, and we've just talked about equity between urban and rural education, and no school should not have the facilities it needs within the school because of an inability to purchase them through other means. As I said in answer to Mandy Jones, as we move from having solved, hopefully, across Wales by March of this year, the problems relating to capacity in the infrastructure outside of schools, we can now turn our attention to what is a fair and equitable way in which we can support local authorities and schools to develop infrastructure within the classroom. That does need to be done in a fair and equitable way, and recognising that, in some areas, the devices that children have at home are probably more powerful than what they have available to them in schools. So, there is not necessarily a one-size-fits-all solution to this. But we will be working with officials in the LIDW branch to seek to prioritise what capital resources that we have, to ensure that schools have the equipment—whether that be stand-alone computers, or hand-held devices—and that schools, crucially, have the advice to know what to buy, and to ensure that, having bought that, teachers are in a position to be able to utilise it most effectively for the learning of pupils. And, again, we are looking at how we can, at a national level, provide that consistency of support, and maybe a menu of products and support, so that schools can make really good and prudent decisions when they invest these resources.