Northumberland council spends £1m on school broadband

Northumberland county council has agreed to spend £1million on new broadband access for 200 schools.

By signing a contract with technology firm KBR IT and Networking, the council hopes to have all the schools set up with wireless connections.

The deal is part of the authority's Wireless Network initiative, which once completed will give 40,000 children access to wireless working.

Richard Taylor, ICT and eLearning advisor in the children's services directorate, says teachers and teaching assistants work with children on personalised learning agendas and pupils have constant access to their files.

"It's the future of education – one device per pupil – and we've already seen real growth in the number of netbooks, laptops and PDAs being used in schools," said Mr Taylor.

The UK government is keen to roll out broadband to the entire country in a bid to close what is known as the 'digital divide' - a knowledge gap between those with and without internet access.

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