Good idea
I am a second year student at University, after being made redundant from my last 2 Project Management roles I decided to study for my Masters in Foresic Psychology working on the idea that we don't seem to be running out of criminals so hopefully I won't face redundancy again.
Although I am studying full time I work two days a week and am also a single parent to a 7 year old son. I get no state benefits as my student loan is classed as income. I use my laptop throughout the day for my studies and thankfully I bought it prior to studying while I still had some money in the bank.
For a family such as mine the scheme is useful, yes if it wasn't there I have no doubt that my son would still do well at school and would still go on to college and university but my son comes from a family where both myself and ex husband are professionals and both attended university.
Whether we agree with it or not children are taught differently in todays education system, they are taught to use calculators and they do use computers at school. My son uses my laptop for 4 hours a week and he spends the time either on google - learning answers to questions he has or on various educational 'game' sites.
He does not have any computers or game consoles at home, we do not have sky and there is certainly no 4x4 in the drive.
Yes it is costing tax payers money and I know a lot of voters will be unhappy with that; in which case vote for someone else but please do not slate all families on low incomes, I paid into the tax system for 10 years and in 2 years will do so again, apart from using the NHS I have never claimed anything back from it. If these laptops helps even a small percentage of families then I'm happy to have done so.