Thousands of students still don't have access to the internet or a device at home, latest Network 4 Learning report finds. Photo / 123RF
Thousands of students still don't have access to the internet or a device at home, latest Network 4 Learning report finds. Photo / 123RF
Thousands of students still have no internet access at home, according to a new report - and even more have no access to a device that isn't a mobile phone.
Half of low-decile schools in a large survey in June said the majority of their students had no device at home, while a quarter said more than half had no internet access.
The Network for Learning (N4L) report, published today, was based on answers from 550 schools that responded to the survey in June - two months before Auckland went into lockdown.
Among the lowest decile schools (decile 1-3) 47 per cent said more than half of their students lacked device access at home, compared to seven per cent of high decile schools.
And one digital advocate told the Herald many kids are still missing out - often because they're too embarrassed to ask their school for a laptop.
Schools that responded to N4L's survey said without internet or devices their students could struggle to complete research or other online homework. They could easily fall behind or feel left out, and their digital literacy could suffer.
Connecting with those students and their parents was difficult even outside lockdowns as they couldn't get email newsletters or receive progress reports; and during lockdown students lost contact with classmates and teachers.
The biggest shortage in devices was among primary school students - likely thanks to the Ministry of Education's focus on getting devices out to secondary students who needed them for NCEA.
Since the start of the pandemic the Ministry has sent out more than 46,000 devices including 10,000 this year, according to RNZ.
Ministry spokeswoman Ellen MacGregor-Reid told RNZ there were supply issues due to lockdown and high demand from many organisations. About 40,000 younger students were still missing devices but the ministry had met "all known secondary need", she said.
But Xero developer Eteroa Lafaele believes there is more need out there for devices, including among secondary students.
Lafaele started the charitable initiative DigiTautua to distribute laptops to kids in need, focusing initially on South Auckland.
Eteroa Lafaele is the founder of DigiTautua, a charitable initiative that distributes laptops to students in need. Photo / Supplied
DigiTautua has had more than 1000 requests for devices since lockdown began in August and is working through the backlog as resources become available - and making sure it's not doubling up with Ministry laptops.
Resources come through both a Givealittle page - which has raised more than $90,000 - and companies which donate old laptops to be wiped and refurbished for students to use.
Students don't need fancy laptops, Lafaele said. "They don't need Nasa gaming chips to do the job - they just need basic 4GB of ram, one good CPU and they're sorted."
Lafaele and DigiTautua's other team member drop off about 20 devices a week in Auckland, making sure secondary students get priority. She reckons about half their deliveries are to people in state housing and the other half to emergency accommodation.
There were secondary students who had not asked their schools for Ministry-funded devices for a whole range of reasons, she said. Some were worried that their siblings would damage the device, with one school charging a $100 bond for each laptop. Others were too embarrassed to ask for help.
That included students who attended high-decile schools - one boy was on a scholarship at an elite private school but couldn't face asking the school for a laptop when all his classmates had expensive Macbooks.
She wanted to push back against the "shadow of whakamā" (shame) some students were feeling.
"These kids deserve the opportunity to get a device and an education."
