In our view, any programme aimed at boosting tech literacy must focus on three areas:
1. Inspiring kids
Children need to connect with tech concepts and find them exciting. We’re bringing expertise across our business, and collaborating with tech entrepreneurs and education thinkers to find fresh and creative ways to engage with young people’s innate curiosity.
2. Supporting teachers
Many teachers don’t feel confident to teach tech literacy. We can help with that. Already we’ve engaged with thousands of teachers in the UK – reaching nearly 350,000 primary children last school year, with a goal to reach 5 million by 2020. And we collaborated with MIT to bring new coding tools into classrooms.
3. Equipping schools
Technology in schools is a challenge even in advanced countries. In the UK, we’re working to make sure that our high-speed fibre broadband connects more of the hard-to-reach schools – and using our expertise to help teaching professionals who stand ready to bake tech into the everyday life of schools.
For us, this is just the start of a long-term commitment to try to inspire young people, support teachers and help to better equip schools. We expect it will take a school generation to see the kind of culture shift we think is necessary.