In March 2021, when John Swinney was education secretary, he vowed to “deliver into the hands of every school child in Scotland a laptop, Chromebook or tablet to use in school and at home”.

Almost three years to the day later, that promise was watered down by his successor, Jenny Gilruth, who said on 21 March that only pupils from poorer backgrounds would benefit from a government-funded device.

This week, the government told Tes Scotland it would invest £10 million in the coming financial year “to provide devices, internet access and the skills to use them for the most disadvantaged households”.

Still, the revised plans are a pale imitation of Swinney’s original ambition and have provided fodder for opposition politicians - as well as leaving a messy landscape across Scotland, in which only some pupils have school devices.

Now, for the first time, Tes Scotland can set out a comprehensive picture of the one-to-one schemes that do exist, or are in the process of being rolled out.

In total, we found that 10 of Scotland’s 32 local authorities have policies - at various stages - to provide all or many pupils with their own device, but 22 do not.

The upshot is that while children in Midlothian should have their own device from P1 until they leave school, for example, pupils in neighbouring East Lothian will not. East Lothian Council says it aims to provide the equivalent of one device for every two pupils by 2026, but that “no Scottish government funding has been made available” for a device for every pupil.

‘Patchwork provision’

This “patchwork provision across Scotland is unacceptable and only further compounds issues of inequity for our young people”, says School Leaders Scotland (SLS).

SLS is “wholeheartedly behind the expectation that all learners have access to one-to-one devices”, so that they become “digitally literate and able to compete confidently and successfully in the wider world”.

Some councils clearly agree and have forged ahead with their own plans - although some are candid that, if national funding is not forthcoming, these may be scaled back.

The Tes Scotland investigation found that the longest-running one-to-one scheme was launched before the SNP made its pledge, by Highland Council in 2018, where P6 to S6 pupils receive Chromebooks. There are also one-to-one schemes in Edinburgh, Falkirk and Glasgow, while in the Scottish Borders, every child gets an iPad from P4.

Midlothian and Clackmannanshire have a mixed economy of iPads and Chromebooks from early primary (P1 in Midlothian, P2 in Clackmannanshire), while all P4 to S6 Stirling pupils get a Chromebook.

Other schemes are partially underway. Aberdeen started its rollout of a device for every child from P6 to S6 in January and hopes to have it fully underway by October 2025. Western Isles Council provides a laptop for all secondary students and is looking to extend this to all primary pupils “in the interests of digital equity” and the “growth of the digital curriculum”, explains Donald Macleod, chief officer for education and children’s services.

However, many councils say they simply cannot afford to take forward similar schemes without the government’s help. Glasgow provides an iPad for pupils from P5 to S6. Its education director Douglas Hutchison says this has been “invaluable” for learning and teaching, but the council might have to look at “reducing the scope and scale of one-to-one devices if there’s no additional funding coming nationally”.

Divide growing worse by the year

Other councils are yet to dip a toe in the water and headteachers in those areas say students are “at a clear disadvantage” that “grows worse year on year”.

One secondary head, who asked not to be named, says having no scheme hampers recruitment because teachers from authorities with devices for all “are increasingly dismayed we don’t have any”. It also interferes with his school’s ability to take action to curb the use of mobile phones: “Even if we wanted to, we couldn’t ban them because we rely on their use in some classes, which is all very iniquitous.”

Secondary headteacher Stuart Clark made this point in a piece for Tes Scotland in August, responding to the government’s new guidance on mobile phones in schools. It gave headteachers the freedom to ban mobiles, but Clark pointed out that if the school does not provide devices, “some level of ‘bring your own device’ is close to essential”.

Clark’s authority, East Renfrewshire, is one of the 22 without a personal-device scheme for pupils. The council says it started “to develop plans to put such a scheme in place”, but adds: “Unfortunately, as this has not progressed at a national level and funding has not been provided, we haven’t proceeded with these plans.”

This is echoed by many authorities without such schemes, including Angus, Dundee and South Ayrshire: they will pursue them only if government money becomes available.

A key question, though, is whether that investment would be money well spent.

Scottish Borders puts the cost of its “digital education transformation” at £16 million over 10 years, and Edinburgh says its one-to-one rollout was completed in December 2022, “thanks to a £17.6 million boost to learning and teaching”.

Glasgow says the true cost of the iPad rollout is harder to unpick because it was wrapped up in a seven-year “all-council IT contract” worth £300 million.

But in Glasgow, teachers’ jobs are being cut to make savings and other councils are looking at fairly drastic measures to balance the books. Falkirk has a one-to-one device scheme with P6 to S6 receiving iPads, but it is looking at cutting the time children spend in school to save money. Edinburgh, meanwhile, gives an iPad to pupils from P6 to S6, but is consulting on education cuts of £10 million - including staff reductions.

Rollout of iPads ‘not a vanity project’

A Glasgow primary school headteacher defends the council’s decision to spend big on technology: the rollout of iPads was not a “vanity project” but a vital aspect of a 21st-century education.

The head says: “We need to invest in educational resources that are relevant to our young people, and iPads and digital technology are the relevant tools for our kids. If we took the iPads and IT away, we would be doing them a real disservice. This is the world they are moving into.”

But while the rollout of iPads in Glasgow has been successful, and the headteacher in question has seen some “outstanding” use of the technology, costs are increasingly being pushed onto schools: if an iPad is lost or damaged, the school must foot the bill.

The head also highlights the importance of future-proofing one-to-one schemes: in Glasgow, the same iPads are recycled year after year and have “had multiple users”. Hutchison concedes that attrition through loss or damage is “significant”, with these costs being borne by both schools and the council.

Ultimately, though, he says the investment is worth it: “I can’t imagine 21st-century learning without that level of access to devices, particularly in a context of such high levels of deprivation where you can’t make assumptions about access to devices anywhere else other than in school.”

Hutchison sees “huge value and benefit in having one consistent platform”, as this helps schools and the council to take a strategic approach to learning, teaching and assessment.

Midlothian Council has undertaken the most comprehensive device rollout of any Scottish council, according to Tes Scotland’s research: every school-aged child has their own device. Susan Ward - a former primary school leader - is the quality improvement officer leading the project, and believes it is “absolutely critical” that all pupils have their own device.

The job of educators is to get young people ready for the world they are going into - and “that’s a digital world”, she says. “They need to be exposed to those opportunities in terms of the use of the technology but it’s also about equity. If you are leaving it to what individual families are able to afford, those experiences become very different.”

Heads taking matters into own hands

It is not just individual authorities taking matters into their own hands - individual headteachers are also making access to devices a priority.

In Dundee, there is no devices-for-all scheme, but Morgan Academy head Johnny Lothian has funded a device for all his students using the Pupil Equity Fund money he receives to close the attainment gap.

Lothian had recently taken up his post when schools went into lockdown in January 2021. In August 2022, all students were given their own laptops. He wanted to capitalise on the huge progress made with digital learning during the Covid pandemic, when teachers had to hone their skills quickly to make online learning work.

The devices, Lothian says, are making students more independent, giving them a wider range of resources, helping them to be more organised, and allowing access to lessons and homework at any time. Lothian believes they have been “a key factor” in the school’s improving attainment.

Unexpected benefits have included improved communication between teachers and the quarter of students at Morgan Academy who do not speak English as their first language. The school has also saved money in other areas, such as photocopying.

For schools looking to go it alone, Lothian says getting “buy-in” from staff - by making it clear how they will be supported to improve their skills - is crucial. Schools also need to plan for what happens when devices need fixing or are left at home.

In its 2023 Global Education Monitoring Report Technology in education: A tool on whose terms?, Unesco highlighted that the upfront cost of education technology was likely to be just “25 per cent or less of the eventual cost” because of maintenance, training and security costs, including protection from cyber attacks.

It said that “good, impartial evidence on the impact of education technology is in short supply” because it evolves so fast; much research was conducted by companies trying to sell schools their products.

‘Focus on learning outcomes, not digital inputs’

The key message from the report is that “the focus should be on learning outcomes, not digital inputs”, such as the mass distribution of specific devices.

Or, as Sir Kevan Collins similarly puts it in his foreword to the 2021 Education Endowment Foundation report, Using Digital Technology to Improve Learning, “buying a tablet for every pupil is unlikely to boost pupil attainment” but “if those tablets are used purposefully…they stand a much better chance of doing so”.

SLS needs no persuading of the benefits, although it stresses that the barriers are not just financial and the IT infrastructure must be in place to support it. One school, it says, trialled devices for its S4 to S6s and “broke the council’s internet”.

Where schemes have got off the ground, SLS believes widespread access to devices has “increased the creativity of teachers ten-fold”, “revolutionised how [teachers] deliver”, allowed access to learning materials “24/7” and, when used well, helped “provide higher quality feedback”.

SLS also says the right device and technology can help parents engage with their children’s learning and provide a big boost to pupils with additional support needs: “Every pupil deserves a device to support learning,” it says.

The financial reality, however, is hard to ignore. Setting out the programme for government this month, first minister John Swinney emphasised the “challenging situation” the government faced. Just a day before, the finance secretary Shona Robison had announced £500 million of cuts.

In these straitened times, it might not be possible for the government to give a device to every pupil - but it could tell schools and councils definitively if this is where they should target their ever-shrinking resources.

After all, there are now at least 10 different versions of one-to-one schemes in Scotland to scrutinise and study.

Emma Seith is senior reporter for Tes Scotland. She tweets @Emma_Seith

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