Some students are having to pay for access to online learning because it hasn’t been available to them, an MHK has claimed.

Questions about the ’patchwork’ of provision were made in the House of Keys this week.

Clare Barber (Douglas East) and Lawrie Hooper (Ramsey) asked what provision for remote learning was being made for pupils unable to return to school.

Education Minister Dr Alex Allinson said school attendance was now close to normal levels.

’The department has advised schools that the usual procedures for pupils who are too poorly to attend school, or who are shielding, will need to be maintained,’ he said.

’This does not mean that all remote learning can or should be stepped down but that a proportionate response needs to be developed as it would have been before the pandemic.’

Mrs Barber asked if remote online learning was available to all pupils unable to attend school. She claimed there have been students who are ’having to pay themselves to access online learning as it hasn’t been available via the department’.

Dr Allinson said online learning was just one form of teaching that can carry on but it is not appropriate for all students. He said individual schools’ arrangements will differ.

He insisted schools’ provision was quality assured by the Educational Improvement Service.

Mr Hooper said there was no quality assurance carried out during the Covid crisis.

He said clarity was needed by the department on how remote learning was going to be quality assured ’to make sure we don’t continue to have a patchwork of provision across the island’.

Mrs Barber urged the Minister to commit to a comprehensive uniform plan to deliver remote learning to all students who are not able to attend school.

’If we had had that in place prior to Covid-19 we would have been in a far stronger position,’ he said.