Universal Home Access

The Universal Home Access (UHA) programme, which is led by Birmingham City Council (BCC), follows set government policy. The programme is funded through the Computers for Pupils grant; a £60m Government investment in ICT to loan computers to deprived secondary pupils which is being rolled out through schools and Local Authority's. The programme will run from November 2006 to end of 2008.

BCC received a £5.7m grant in November 2006 and by the end of 2008 had rolled out around 18,000 laptops to Birmingham pupils through the Student Access at Home project. BCC is working together with the Birmingham E-Learning Foundation (BeLF) and the Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme.

Digital Birmingham influences and assists the programme with its aim for every learner across the city to have as 'an entitlement' the opportunity to access a connected computer at home and gain the benefits that brings.

Gordon Brown announced in his speech to the Labour Party conference, in September 2008, a further £300m of funding to be made available to continue the programme. The contents of the Report of the Minister's Taskforce on Home Access to Technology suggests that this will now be channelled through individual Education Technology Accounts which parents will apply for and that these accounts will be means-tested. This introduces new challenges to Digital Birmingham's wish to influence the effectiveness of the programme in Birmingham. Digital Birmingham's aim is that the city will produce a Birmingham offer which means that all children will have access to a personal digital learning device irrespective of their ability to pay.

Birmingham scheme
In a scheme hailed as the most successful project of its kind in the country, over 18,000 pupils across 62 secondary schools in the Birmingham area have now been given a computer to use whenever and wherever they like - whether learning at school or at home. In addition, the project will be providing 5,000 Wi-Fi connections to students who don't currently have internet access at home.

This Birmingham initiative is the result of an innovative partnership between Birmingham City Council, Birmingham e-Learning Foundation (Be-LF), the National e-Learning Foundation (NeLF) and education ICT suppliers, including Research Machines (RM).. They recognised that whereas children in Birmingham enjoy excellent learning resources through technology in their schools, the reality is that many pupils do not have a computer at home. Learning therefore often stopped firmly at the school door, and pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds increasingly suffered from a 'digital divide'.

Three years into the scheme, the feedback from pupils, parents and teachers is positive and encouraging enough, but what has made the Birmingham scheme so exceptional is the sustainable nature of the model. Thousands of parents have been encouraged to support the scheme by making voluntary charitable contributions, and schools have played their part setting up parents' evenings, helping with the donation paperwork and adapting teaching and learning to take advantage of the new environment. The monies raised - along with additional funding from the National e-Learning Foundation and BCC have been used to invest in further computers and ICT.

If you want to find out more about Universal Home Access please email digital@birmingham.gov.uk.