A Westfield shopping center is not an obvious place to do homework. But for Deborah Botende, it was one of her only options.
Botende grew up in foster care in Brisbane and didn’t have internet access at home. Throughout high school, he would stay behind after his shift at retail to use the mall’s Wi-Fi and complete his schoolwork on a secondhand laptop.
On days she wasn’t working, Botende walked to the library, but she was limited by early closing hours.
“It was very, very difficult for me, I found myself falling behind on assignments or not understanding them,” she says. “(Not having the Internet) was a very important barrier to my education: I had to be constantly proactive.
“I used the Internet after work and came home late to revise on my own… I felt like I had no choice, this was my reality.”
As end-of-year exams begin to roll out across the country, The Smith Family is calling on the federal government to create a national device bank to close digital inclusion gaps among young people.
According to the latest Australian Digital Inclusion Index (ADII), almost a quarter of Australians are digitally excluded, meaning they do not have access to essential technology such as the internet and fast, reliable digital devices.
The Smith Family CEO Doug Taylor says that in the last five years corporations and governments have upgraded about 10 million laptops, tablets and PCs. If they were recycled, 10 million students could benefit.
“Digital poverty is the new frontier of how people experience poverty,” Taylor says. “It’s a barrier that goes beyond access.”
The bank of devices would not be without precedent. Since 1993, the Canadian government has refurbished and distributed nearly two million digital devices as part of a Computers for Schools program designed to reduce electronic waste and improve the digital skills of young people.
Similarly, The Smith Family has recycled about 6,500 laptops as part of its broadband initiative, and more than 80% of students experienced an improvement in their grades once they received a device, according to the organization.
Taylor says that with the rapid expansion of artificial intelligence and new technologies, digital skills are now as important as literacy and numeracy when it comes to a child’s education.
“We know that more jobs will require a tertiary education, and it’s difficult to consider university without a laptop, or transitioning into employment,” Taylor says.
“At the same time, schools now see AI as an inevitable tool. If you can’t access it, to what extent will you be disadvantaged in your education?”
Affordability is the main reason behind digital exclusion. ADII research estimates that 65% of people living in public housing are under digital affordability stress, meaning they need to pay more than 5% of household income to maintain quality, reliable connectivity, which which increases to 70% of people without jobs.
Without a national digital inclusion framework, Taylor says struggling families are having to navigate limited subsidies and loans from state and territory governments – policies that are “all over the place”.
There has been some movement in recent years. The Queensland Government has recently introduced funding for public schools to partially reimburse financially disadvantaged students for devices. There is also a subsidy scheme to improve broadband internet connection for students studying remotely.
In Victoria, schools choose to provide devices, either on loan or in shared classes, or implement a Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) program, where parents are invited to provide a digital device for their children to use and possess. In New South Wales, principals can approve the loan of digital devices to students to use at home, but this is not mandatory.
“It’s one of those things that has a solution,” Taylor says. “We have to think about universal access. Last week I was talking to a student who went to a lecture and he was one of the only kids in the entire setting who wasn’t taking notes on a laptop. The penny dropped.
“If children do not feel part of their school environment, this affects their ability to get the most out of their education. Grades are affected and attendance is affected.”
For Botende, who has just completed a tertiary degree with the help of a donated laptop, people from low socio-economic backgrounds are already disadvantaged in a variety of areas.
“Digital inclusion seems very basic,” he says. “But it levels the playing field.”
