Jim Knight, UK Schools Minister, has told The Guardian that parents should now assume responsibility for providing IT resources at home, including Web access.  "We need to get to a point where in the same way when they start school the expectation is you'''''ve [the parent] got to find a school uniform, provide them with something to write with and probably these days a calculator, and in secondary school some sports gear - well, you add to that some IT."

The statement came in an interview with Will Woodward who reports that "parents could be required to provide their children with high-speed Internet access under plans being drawn up by ministers in partnership with some of the country's leading IT firms."

Talks continue with companies such as Microsoft, BT, Sky, Virgin and RM to help close the widening achievement gap between pupils from the richest and poorest families. More than one million UK children have no access to a computer at home. The issues will be discussed at next week's BETT show on educational technology at Olympia. Last year Jim Knight announced at BETT a Home Access Taskforce following a study by Intel. Dell and RM on "universal home access".

The implication is that access to the web is now accepted as part of a learning environment. Jim Knight made the case for better web access- "Obviously you need to make that affordable, you need to make that universal otherwise you just advantage those who can afford it. To some extent that's the case at the moment, where 50% of homes have got IT broadband, but they are hugely powerful educational tools ... we know from the research evidence the difference that information technology can make."

Much educational design has been intended to restrict access to unreliable information and to avoid time wasting through networking.  Products at the 2008 BETT will include Autology, based on corporate technology from Autonomy, which is limited to 12,000 websites believed to be "credible". As reported in Personal Computer World, Bloxx will demonstrate how to "block bandwidth-hogging social-networking sites" and also block "proxy servers that allow crafty students to get on the Web."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/6245899.stm

www.bloxx.com

www.autology.com

http://www.pcw.co.uk/crn/analysis/2206425/safe-bett-innovation-3724662

There has yet to be any official statement in 2008 about the future use of open source software in UK schools. Many people at home are using Firefox and Open Office even if Linux is rare on the desktop. This is one way that web access is easier to afford. The statement from Jim Knight seems still mainly concerned with negotiating for discounts from existing sources, suggesting that "the government could in effect procure millions of new customers for them".