The delightful Conservative party and MR Cameron are still struggling to identify that there are families in Britain, due to their cruel, harsh but necessary cost cutting is making low income families even worse off than they have ever been before. It never fails to annoy me when David Cameron our somewhat blind Prime Minister continues to state that families of this sort are his “priority” clearly not. Of course I can understand that financial cuts were necessary and the Labour government didn’t seem to be able to do basic arithmetic or calculate costs. The cuts brought in by MR Cameron and co however in my opinion has been done in all the wrong places. The local councils are just as bad with them closing down local public libraries yet as a result only saving minuscule amounts of money yet causing upset within main communities. It seems that all these suit wearing, idiotic people are living in their own 4 / 5 bedroom house bubbles. No idea, what poverty means, is and could certainly not contemplate it.
Winter is set to be one of the coldest yet and therefore we shall all be turning the dreaded knob on our boilers to enable our central heating around our homes. The fact is, it is a necessity to be warm. But just how are these low income families and old age pensioners supposed to find the money to pay what are the soaring energy prices? the simple matter is there isn’t an answer, not until something is done about it... but with reports that energy prices shall increase again next year shall this blatantly difficult financial stress on these groups of people ever ease?
Something which may ease the pressure from low income families however is a scheme in place by the government which is set to go live next week after a trial period in 2009 within Oldham & Suffolk called “Home Access” where people who fit the criteria shall be able to claim a free government laptop. This is down to an estimated £300m investment ensuring that all Children have access online within their home in England. Shockingly, 1.4 million children in England simply do not have access to the Internet at home and therefore if our children have any form of school work to do, they are are relying on the likes of public libraries, of which we know are seemingly all being closed... with that in mind, action needs to be taken pronto!
Niel McLean, executive director, Schools and Families, at the government agency Becta, said: “Recent evidence suggests that young people with a computer at home could get a B, rather than a D, at GCSE."
Those figures do not surprise me in the slightest. Times have changed so much and more so over the last 5 years. When I started at Primary School I can remember having to do none stop writing, high school for the first 3 years or so was the same, but as I entered my penultimate year it seemed as if everything was done on a computer. essays, short tasks and the general lesson structure seemed to be based around gathering information from Internet sources and my college course especially was dominated and solely relied on computers and if I hadn’t myself, have had home access to a computer then I certainly wouldn’t have come out the other end with flying colours! books are simply not adequate these days for the types of in-depth and specific information needed by students and quite frankly the Internet should just be something compared to a household oven, something which you NEED!
Families receiving income support or unemployment benefits will be able to apply for a Home Access grant which they can use to purchase a computer or broadband package from an approved supplier.
Most people who meet the criteria for free school meals will be eligible to apply.
At launch, children aged 7-14, in school years 3-9, will be eligible, but the programme is aiming to work towards universal home access for all school age children by 2011.
Funding is available for around 270,000 households and you can apply by calling 0333 200 1004 for an application form.
If your application is approved, you will receive a prepaid Barclaycard, which is valid for three months, and which you can use at approved retailers.
I do hope this scheme gets well publicised and used by those that need to take advantage of this offer. It isn’t the norm to get something for free and especially in terms of a child’s education a household computer is a simple must have!
The scheme goes live next week.
Comments