Over a third of children from the poorest households in the U.K. do not have access to the Internet and a similar proportion do not have a computer, according to figures from the Office of National Statistics. By contrast the latest Family Spending survey suggests all the children from the country’s wealthiest homes have access to the Internet and computers.
The survey was carried out in 2011, analyzing the income and expenditure of 11,000 households across the U.K. The E-Learning Foundation charity broke down the data for families and found that overall 89% of children had access to the Internet via a computer. But the figures also revealed a divide, according to the BBC.
The data shows that while 99% of children in the richest 10% of households can access the internet via a computer, this dropped to 57% in the poorest 10% of households with children.
In the poorest households 29% had no computer, 36% had no internet and 43% had no internet connection via a computer.
According to the E-Learning Foundation this translates to a total of 750,000 school age children living in households with no internet, and some 650,000 without a computer.
The article references research from Oxford University’s Department of Education that found children without Internet access felt shut out from their peers by not having access to social networks and disadvantaged in their studies as they were unable to carry out research or complete written work from home.
Valerie Thompson of the E-Learning Foundation suggested social housing providers could offer Wi-Fi for their tenants and schools could use the government’s pupil premium to buy laptops for the most disadvantaged students.