Education's rural divide

Families in rural areas believe that slow broadband is damaging their children’s educational performance.

A recent report by NFU Mutual claims that one in three families in rural areas believe their connectivity to be beneath the standard required to access important, online educational resources.

If such statistics are accurate then this is yet another example of how rural communities are falling further behind urban counterparts due to poor connectivity access.

In an attempt to narrow the so called ‘digital divide’ the government plan to deliver superfast access to 95% of households by 2017. However within the telecommunications industry doubts remain over the governments and BT’s ability to deliver these targets and to ensure that those most in need are provided for.

Traditionally rural communities have been left without fast access because the cost for the carrier to deliver outweighed what return they might make from businesses and residents in such sparsely populated areas.

If you’re in an area where broadband access is slow, please sign up to INCA’s notspot map www.inca.coop/notspot to help build a picture of the areas in the UK most at need of faster internet access.