Dixons Carphone and Learning Foundation Establish Major New Partnership Tackling Digital Poverty and Supporting Digital Learning

Dixons Carphone and Learning Foundation establish major new partnership Tackling digital poverty and supporting digital learning

 Dixons Carphone commits £1million to Learning Foundation and will:  Become one of three core founding partners of the Digital Poverty Alliance  Equip 1,000 teachers in the poorest communities with technology to the benefit of their 30,000 pupils

Dixons Carphone is to give £1million to support the Learning Foundation and its work with disadvantaged pupils, parents and teachers as part of a longer-term commitment to end digital poverty in the UK once and for all. The business behind Currys PC World and Carphone Warehouse is working with The Learning Foundation to give £1m to our Digital Access For All (DAFA) programme to support digital learning. The money will also equip 1,000 teachers and teaching assistants with the technology and help they need to deliver high quality home schooling to 30,000 disadvantaged pupils** during the pandemic and beyond. The retailer will also become one of three core founding partners of the Digital Poverty Alliance (DPA), a group of organisations brought together by DAFA and the Institution of Engineering and Technology to tackle digital poverty in the UK, particularly for disadvantaged children. Dixons Carphone will work with the DPA as we draw together the partnership which will include major companies, local and national government departments and enterprises, charities and community organisation. Dixons Carphone will bring its unique expertise in areas such as trade-in, repair, recycling and services, as well as utilise its extensive, national distribution and retail network, to help the Alliance achieve scale in their ambitions. Dixons Carphone has a wonderful commitment to its vision of ‘We Help Everyone Enjoy Amazing Technology’ and promises a sustainable approach that delivers the excitement and inclusivity of technology to every child. Alex Baldock, CEO of Dixons Carphone, said: “Our business exists to help everyone enjoy amazing technology. We’re already helping thousands of older people to digitally connect through our partnership with Age UK and now we’re stepping up to tackle the digital divide in education.

“Supporting teachers is our first priority as part of this pledge. Teachers are among the heroes of the pandemic and many are struggling with getting the most out of technology and remote learning. “We will work with Digital Access For All and the Digital Poverty Alliance to develop solutions to eradicate this problem. With our scale, award-winning recycling and reuse operations, significant presence in the community and the help of 22,000 expert UK colleagues, we are confident we can make a difference.” Paul Finnis, CEO of The Learning Foundation, said: “We could not be more excited to have Dixons Carphone on board. In our 20-year history of working with schools and technology we've learned how to develop innovative solutions to address the digital discrepancy that exists at home for millions of people. With the pandemic having only exacerbated this divide, having a specialist retailer with the expertise, size and scale of Dixons Carphone will be game changing.” Lord Knight of Weymouth, Ex-Minister of State for Schools and Chair of Digital Access for All, said: “I am delighted to welcome Dixons Carphone as the lead partner of the next stage of the work of Digital Access For All. This donation will ensure that our shared ambition of closing the digital divide is closer to being realised and enable us to achieve what we set out to do in 2019 when we launched – to end digital poverty for all by 2025”.

-ends- Notes to editors

• An estimated 1.8 million children are living in households where there is no home access to a laptop, desktop or tablet**Source: Ofcom Technology Tracker 2020. The problem with numbers at the moment is that nobody really knows now as a result of all of the DfE activity and that of many others. When we launched DAFA we started with “1 million households” (indicating more than 1 million children) and then this was updated by the April 2020 OfCom work (www.digitalaccessforall.co.uk/the-numbers) which showed up to 1.8 million children living in households where there was “No home access to laptop or desktop or tablet”. This doesn’t mean that every other household has a device per child or could afford one, for instance meaning children often having to share and with limited broadband available – how do you decide who gets what? ** Laptops for teachers support detail There are approximately two million Pupil Premium children whose family circumstances mean that they have been eligible at any point in the last six years for free school meals.

The Learning Foundation has a database of all schools and the programme we will identify schools with the highest levels of Pupil Premium children and contact them with the Dixons Carphone proposal. This proposal will:

 Offer a number of devices per school for teachers who do not have a device they can use for teaching.  Be applicable to both Primary and Secondary state schools.  Require the agreement of the Headteacher.

***The digital divide There are as estimated 1.8 million children living in households where there is no home access to a laptop, desktop or tablet. Digital exclusion can lead to poorer health outcomes and a lower life expectancy, increased loneliness, social isolation, and less access to jobs and education. It can mean paying more for essentials, financial exclusion and an increased risk of falling into poverty.

***Reference – accessed on 01.02.2021 - https://digitalaccessforall.co.uk/

For further information please contact:

Amy Shields Director of External Communications, Dixons Carphone +44 (0)7588 201442

Tim Danaher, Sam Chiene Brunswick Group +44 (0)207 4045959

Paul Finnis CEO, Learning Foundation 07943 730686

Information on Dixons Carphone plc is available at www.dixonscarphone.com and for Learning Foundation at www.learningfoundation.org.uk Follow us on Twitter: @dixonscarphone and for Learning Foundation - @elearningfound and DAFA at @DAFA_UK

About the Learning Foundation:

Our vision is to fully address the current situation where, despite growth in home access to the internet, there are still more than 2 million children in the UK who have little or no access to a device or cannot get online at home, limiting their education opportunities, their chances of improving themselves and hindering their development of digital skills.

Launched as a registered charity in 2001, our aim is to ensure all children have access at home and at school to exciting learning resources so that they may fulfil their potential and overcome disadvantage. We achieve this by working in partnership with schools, parents, charities and businesses.

We know that children achieve their potential when they feel engaged with learning. So we enable teachers and parents to inspire engagement through technology.

About Dixons Carphone

Dixons Carphone plc is a leading omnichannel retailer of technology products and services, operating through 931 stores and 16 websites in eight countries. We Help Everyone Enjoy Amazing Technology, however they choose to shop with us.

We are the market leader in the UK & Ireland, throughout the Nordics and in Greece, employing over 22,000 capable and committed colleagues in the UK & Ireland and approximately 32,500 globally across the Group. Our full range of services and support makes it easy for our customers to discover, choose, afford and enjoy the right technology for them, throughout their lives. The Group’s core operations are supported by an extensive distribution network, enabling delivery to stores and homes, a sourcing office in Hong Kong and a state-of-the-art repair facility in Newark, UK.

Our brands include Currys PC World and Carphone Warehouse in the UK & Ireland and iD Mobile in the UK; Elkjøp, Elgiganten and Gigantti in the Nordics; and Kotsovolos in Greece. Our Dixons Travel brand has a presence across several UK airports as well as in Dublin and Oslo, and our services are provided through Team Knowhow.

About Digital Access For All

When we launched Digital Access For All in February 2019 our ambition was, over the next three years, to deliver a scalable programme that addresses the needs of the two million school aged children who did not have adequate access to a computer and the internet at home and skills necessary to develop them.

Lack of access entrenches those already at a disadvantage by further negatively impacting their financial and educational future. The vision of the Taskforce is to ensure that all children and young people in the UK have equal access to digital and the benefits it provides and specifically over those next three years to respond to the needs of “two million school-aged children that have either no access or inadequate access to a device or connectivity”.

In 2021, as a result of the massive social change and understanding of the issue that concurrently occurred about digital poverty, the extent of that divide and the importance of this for everyone during the pandemic-hit year of 2020, DAFA has adapted its mission. Early in 2021 we will be announcing major new partnerships and an approach to ending digital poverty for everyone in the UK effectively and sustainably.