The Department for Education (DfE) will meet its pledge to deliver 1.3m free laptops for remote lockdown education, just as schools reopen to all pupils next week, new figures suggest.

In the past two weeks, the DfE has delivered around 160,000 laptops at a rate of 80,000 per week, which is a slightly higher delivery rate than previously - up from 70,000 in the last week recorded before half term. 

News: Thousands of school laptops set to arrive after 8 March

Related: Schools can order ‘top-up’ laptops

Free laptops: DfE delivery rate drops every week this term

The total delivered stood at 1,217,194 on Sunday, meaning that are still 82,806 laptops to be delivered before the 1.3 million target is reached. 

The laptops were intended to bridge the “digital divide”, helping students who did not have access to a device at home during school closures in the third national lockdown.

The rollout of devices to students has been slow-moving, with fears last month that thousands of laptops were set to arrive after the school reopening date on March 8.

In January, nearly a fifth of headteachers reported that laptops provided to their pupils by the government had not worked as required.