Covid 19 coronavirus: Thousands of students can't access digital learning on first day of term

On the first day of term, thousands of students can't access digital learning and the Government is still in the international queue to get them devices.

About 80,000 households aren't digitally connected - affecting potentially 145,000 students - and the Government has only been able to get about 5000 devices to those in need.

Education Minister Chris Hipkins told RNZ this morning they'd been able to order about 17,000 devices in total and were in the queue to get more on the international market.

Today is the first day of Term 2 with students of all levels learning from home.

But some students still don't have access to digital learning and the Ministry of Education was distributing free devices based on the advice from schools, Hipkins said.

About 5000 devices were on their way and the Government had sourced about 17,000 in total.

But demand was high internationally for devices so they were in the queue for more, Hipkins told RNZ.

"Which is one of the reasons we cannot rely exclusively on getting people connected digitally, particularly not in a very short space of time."

About 500,000 learning packs were also being sent out to students of all age levels, Hipkins said.

Schools and early childcare centres closed fully from March 26, as the country went into lockdown.

The Easter school holidays were brought forward by two weeks, giving teachers more time to prepare for online learning in Term 2.

New education TV channels have been launched, including a show hosted by Suzy Cato, to help children learn at home during school closures.

On when schools could re-open, Hipkins said April 29 was a "possible date" for some students.

Students of essential workers would be the first to go back to school and the Government was working through public health advice on which age group would return after that.

"One of the things we have to consider is what the risk factors are for different age groups."

For example, it would be hard to ensure social distancing among very young children at early childhood centres but older students are more susceptible to being infected with the coronavirus, Hipkins told RNZ.

"What we've been doing with distance learning is making sure that kids can continue to learn from home for as long as they need to because the decision to re-open schools and early childhood services is going to be based on public health advice."