In just a few short weeks, Coronavirus has turned life as we know it completely on its head and our working lives have also been turned upside down.
Even with many people adapting to working from home, parents have also had to become teachers
With schools closed and at least another 3 weeks of lockdown ahead of us, huge pressures are being placed on teachers and parents to continue education at home, but enter the BBC.
Launching its biggest push on education in its 97 year history, the BBC is providing children with vital and innovative learning resources, with 120 minutes of daily core subject learning on iPlayer and Red Button, quizzes and exercises online and Instagram Live sessions for Year 10 students, keeping them in a solid learning routine and helping to ease the burden on parents.
Don’t just take it from us, our Labour colleagues Catherine McKinnell, Alex Sobel and Jess Phillips have all been making good use of these services at home.
Yesterday Mike Amesbury was telling us about how his 9-year-old son had just completed a great maths lesson followed by a history lesson about the Benin Empire, all through the power of the BBC.
Whether it’s geography with David Attenborough, Spanish with Man City star Sergio Aguero or even Tudor history with Danny Dyer, the BBC is using all the tricks up its sleeve to keep our children learning.
Even more remarkable, is this has all been done against a backdrop of relentless attacks from the Government about its future.
Having already needed to find £800 million in savings by 2020, the previous Culture Secretary Nicky Morgan opened up a review of the BBC’s existence, with a consultation set to end this month on decriminalisation of the licence fee
This followed the axing of free TV licences for over 75s.
When coupled with its historic role in providing clear and accurate news, there are few that will doubt the efforts of the BBC in stepping up to the plate as a public service broadcaster in this time of unprecedented crisis.
In an increasingly competitive media environment, battling giants like Netflix and Amazon, these are vital resources only the BBC is able to provide.
But with an estimated one million children without adequate access to a device or connectivity at home and only two per cent of teachers working in disadvantaged schools believing their students have sufficient access to online learning, the onus is on the Government to ensure all children can access those vital resources.
The Department for Education has made a start by loaning devices to some disadvantaged year 10s, but they must go further and expand the scheme so that children are not left lagging behind their peers.
The current crisis has laid bare the inequality that exists between children and the inequality of opportunity that often has an impact throughout people’s lives.
The BBC has played its part to ensure this crisis does not mean the nation’s children fall behind. The Government must take further steps to do the same.
Of course, things will eventually return to normal. But when they do, we need to shout loudly about the value and benefits we gain from having a strong and effective BBC.
In our time of national crisis, even when it’s fighting for its own survival, the BBC stepped up, and that is something we should never forget.
Jo Stevens is the Shadow Culture Secretary and Rebecca Long-Bailey is the Shadow Education Secretary
