Co-financing for the fight against digital exclusion will be allocated to 1604 municipalities from all over Poland. The total amount allocated for this purpose is PLN 586 222 805. Over 215,000 applications for computers and laptops and over 3,000 tablets were submitted nationwide. The project was funded as part of the European Union’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic from the European Regional Development Fund.

The fight against exclusion is one of the main goals of the government’s digital policy. The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has shown how important the competencies allowing the free use of digital tools are today. The increasing use of new technologies in ​​education means not only great opportunities but also huge challenges.

One of the identified problems is remote learning in former state-owned cooperative agriculture complexes. It revealed a deficit of computer hardware and significant difficulties in accessing the Internet, which had a negative impact on the fulfilment of school duties by children and adolescents. The project aims to eliminate these limitations by providing equal opportunities in access to digital education.

Janusz Cieszyński, government plenipotentiary for cybersecurity emphasizes that Digital Poland should be a Poland of equal opportunities. The programs of the (leading party) Law and Justice government ensure that computer equipment will be received by people who, 30 years after the liquidation of the state-owned cooperative agriculture complexes, could not fully use the new technologies. It gives almost 220,000 children the same opportunities compared to their peers from larger cities.

Cieszyński emphasized that the program, financed from EU funds, implements all three assumptions of the Europe 2020 strategy i.e. allows for sustainable development, gives equal opportunities and builds the information society.

Arkadiusz Słomczyński