Children of low-income families given dongles for home web access

Dongles have been provided to the children of several low-income families at a primary school in Cheshire to enable them to access the internet at home.

Year four pupils belonging to ten different families at the Alderman Bolton Community Primary School in Warrington, Cheshire, have been given dongles through a charity initiative run by mobilebroadband provider T-Mobile and the e-Learning Foundation, reports PublicTechnology.net.

The children are all from low-income families who may not otherwise have had broadband access at home and could help boost their home-learning opportunities.

Lyndsey Glass, the school's headteacher, told the website: "Home access is very important - there is so much emphasis now on virtual learning environments. Those that can't get online at home are very, very restricted."

The government recently pledged to ensure every UK home has a connection of two megabits per second by 2012, although this target has been criticised as being too low by many businesses.

Having a home internet connection could enable more people to use VoIP hardware.