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Digital exclusion: government committee hears evidence from COVID-19 online education experiences
1 March 2023
Dr Jake Anders, Associate Professor at IOE, UCL’s Faculty of Education and Society, spoke at the House of Lords on 28 February as part of the Communications and Digital Committee inquiry into digital exclusion and the cost of living.
Dr Jake Anders noted how the disruption of the Covid-19 pandemic provided an acute example of the importance of digital inclusion for education, citing research evidence from the COVID Social Mobility and Opportunities (COSMO) study.
The study found that young people who were in Year 11 during the academic year 2021/22, spent on average 14 hours per week on remote learning if they had their own laptop or tablet. However this dropped to 9.8 hours per week for those using a mobile phone to connect to remote lessons, while young people without a device spent 8 hours per week on their learning.
Since then, online learning has become an increasingly important part of education delivery. Dr Anders warned that while socioeconomic background is a strong predictor of young people’s access to adequate technology and connectivity, the support provided by schools and the quality of integration in the curriculum must not be overlooked.
He further highlighted how digital exclusion affects not just direct learning but has a spillover effect on access to a range of information young people need to make decisions about further and higher education and careers.
Dr Anders is Deputy Director of IOE’s Centre for Education Policy and Equalising Opportunities, and leads the ESRC-funded longitudinal COSMO study, which is tracking the unequal impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the life chances for a cohort of young people across England.
On 1 March 2023 he was also reappointed to the government’s Evaluation and Trial Advice Panel (ETAP), to support the design and delivery of robust, high-quality evaluation across government departments and What Works Centres. He first joined the panel in 2020. Since its launch in 2015, the Panel has advised on over 160 programmes and policies, spanning a range of policy areas including crime, education, employment and more.
Links
- Q&A with Dr Jake Anders
- COVID Social Mobility and Opportunities Study
- Centre for Education Policy and Equalising Opportunities
- About the Digital exclusion and cost of living inquiry
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Parliament TV live stream, Communications and Digital Committee, House of Lords, 28 February 2023.