Now that headline got your attention. Jim Knight is a government minister named in his Departmental press release as introducing a new gravy train to ensure that all children get access to the internet at home. Whilst this is good news for IT suppliers is it good news for children? Suppose the internet connection uses a wireless connection. The danger here is not exposure to electromagnetic radiation but the privacy of the bedroom. Kids and parents will be only too happy to agree that "homework" is better done in private. But previous Government reports have pointed out that this is dangerous and that kids should use the internet in the presence of their parents who have been trained in how to supervise their children's computer use and overseen by software which will restrict and monitor which sites they visit. Teachers will seize on the opportunity to exclude more children because they can do class work from home. So another Government initiative in which the answer is more technology produced by a committee with a vested interest.
Let's put this in a wider perspective. The Government's Foresight initiative has just produced a report on Mental Capital and Wellbeing in which 450 independent experts list the following five areas related to avoiding stress in adults. (The BBC heads this list as "ways to ward off mental illness" this is naive, or as our internet connected children will say WTF!)
Time for Jim Knight to do his homework "write an essay on whether it is more cost effective to provide school children with a bicycle or a computer"
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