Poland’s agriculture and rural development ministry has announced that it will subsidise the purchase of computers for children from low-income farming families. The aim of the scheme is to help pupils attend online classes while schools remain closed amid the pandemic.
The subsidies will cover up to 1,500 zloty (€337) towards the costs of laptops and desktop computers, along with keyboards, mouses, chargers and software, purchased between 10 December and 31 March by each family that qualifies for the scheme.
The funds will be handled by the Agency for Restructuring and Modernisation of Agriculture (ARiMR), which will accept applications until 30 December 2020. It will then collect invoices until 15 April 2021, reports Polsat News.
The scheme will be limited to low-income households. Only families where monthly income per head – counting both parents and dependant children – was no higher than 1,200 zloty (€270) in 2019 will qualify for the subsidy.
“In education, all children must have equal opportunities,” said Grzegorz Puda, the agriculture and rural development minister. “We are eliminating the exclusion of less wealthy farming families.”
To be eligible, households must also have at least two children below 18 years old who are attending primary or secondary school in the current academic year.
Moreover, at least one of the parents needs to run a farm – as defined by agricultural tax laws – and at least one parent must be registered for a state identification number as a farm producer.
💻 Komputer dla dziecka z rodziny rolniczej.
✅ Złóż wniosek do 30 grudnia 2020 r. Szczegóły na stronie #ARiMR. pic.twitter.com/7UsiNHHNU3— Ministerstwo Rolnictwa i Rozwoju Wsi (@MRiRW_GOV_PL) December 14, 2020
When the government first ordered classes to move online during the first wave of the pandemic in March, many teachers and students suffered from a lack of appropriate equipment, including computers and reliable internet connections.
After schools were again forced to close from October and November amid the second wave, the government announced that it would provide vouchers of 500 zloty (€112) to teachers who need to purchase equipment for online classes. The scheme closed on December 7.
In 2018, the last year for which data are available, there were 3,600 localities in Poland where residents had no internet access, either through fixed or mobile operators, according to the Office of Electronic Communications, a government agency.
There are at least a million students who have to share their equipment with siblings or parents, according to Centrum Cyfrowe, a think tank, and 10% of households with children have only one computer or tablet to use.
Main image credit: Tomasz Mikołajczyk/Pixabay (under Pixabay License)
Maria Wilczek is deputy editor of Notes from Poland. She is a regular writer for The Times, The Economist and Al Jazeera English, and has also featured in Foreign Policy, Politico Europe, The Spectator and Gazeta Wyborcza.
