East Midlands Chamber has urged businesses to donate spare IT equipment to homeworking parents who may be unable to afford laptops or tablets for their children.
Director of resources Lucy Robinson said: “It’s become increasingly clear throughout this pandemic that Covid-19 is only serving to widen gaps between people according to their socioeconomic groups.
“We absolutely must not allow this to also lead to a widening of the education gap as there’s plenty of evidence to show how important a decent education is to setting children up for a good career – enabling them to contribute to the local economy in future.
“There will be many businesses that have spare laptops and other IT equipment lying around offices unused as a result of either temporary or permanent reduction in headcounts. We would encourage companies to help out by either loaning or donating kit to their own employees who fall into this category, or to schools and dedicated charities.
“Such actions can form a key part of CSR activity, which we’ve seen is becoming increasingly vital to employees who want to work for organisations that share their values, while it could also improve productivity as we’re hearing more and more about disruption to business as a result of homeschooling.”
