Laptop computers worth more than half a million pounds are being made available to students in Walsall as part of the town's New Deal initiative.
The 470 machines will be available for use in schools which serve the areas of Blakenhall, Bloxwich and Leamore.
Community users - particularly within the New Deal headquarters at the Blakenall Village Centre - will also have access to the computers, which are being supplied by Research Machines.
Walsall's New Deal for Communities, a regeneration initiative working in the Blakenhall, Bloxwich East and Leamore areas, received a £52 million Government grant from the Department for Communities and Local Government (formerly the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister) to be spent on sustainable regeneration spread over a ten year period. It was launched some five years ago.
The ICT project is the result of findings in the 2002 and 2004 MORI surveys on the area, which revealed that access to computers was substantially below that of the general population of the UK.
New Deal's Education Theme - chaired by local resident and New Deal board member Mick Taylor took - up the challenge to a ddress the problem, increasing access by the providing the laptops.
"The majority of New Deal students attend high schools outside of the New Deal area," Mr Taylor said.
"Their ability to access computers after school is particularly important in order for them to support their homework research and access to the schools online curriculum.
"We believe that this initiative will go along way in supporting our students assisting them in achieving results that they will require for their chosen careers."
To launch the project, New Deal, in partnership w ith schools, will tomorrow stage a working seminar and lunch at the Blakenhall Village Centre which will be attended by board members, education offices and representat ives of the schools involved.
Providing laptops in high schools will enable pupils to remotely access their school's curriculum and help them carry out research.
In primary schools a suite of the computers, mounted on a storage trolley, will also help youngsters access the internet for use in class.
Four nursery schools have also received similar trolleys, storing, recharging and enabling wireless access to the internet for 16 tablet computers each. These are more accessible to younger pupils and facilitate their work through interactive touch screens.
