Essex County Council is aiming to improve learning in its schools by making more than 200,000 wireless laptops available to its students and teachers over the next three years.

The council will work with the Essex e-Learning Foundation charity to provide more than 500 schools in the UK's second largest Local Education Authority with Intel Centrino laptops kitted out with Microsoft applications, including Word, Excel and PowerPoint.

The Anytime, Anywhere Learning initiative, which follows a trial by 400 students in seven schools, aims to enable schools to electronically deliver the curriculum to students of all ages, aiding research, homework and assignments.

"Kids are expected to use IT in every part of the curriculum these days," said Anthony Burdis, senior ICT advisor at Essex County Council.

"Wireless laptops extend the learning experience - it's great to have a computer room in schools, but it's not much good when you need to use them in history lessons."

The Essex e-Learning Foundation will also offer training to teachers in the use of wireless technologies and work with wireless vendors to kit out schools.

"By 2007 every pupil in the authority will have access to a digital learning device," added Burdis.

Essex County Council said that it anticipates significant cost savings from wireless e-learning by eliminating cable costs and offering more learning and information tools to children and teachers.

The council also expects to use the Intel Centrino laptops and wireless hotspots for community-based training in schools or at home.

"We hope that parents will be able to learn about the technology and its applications as well," said Burdis.

Findings from the initial trial showed clear learning benefits, with some children reaching GCSE-level at the end of primary school, he added.

The Intel laptops will be funded by charitable donations and grants, as well as weekly contributions of £4 to £5 from parents.

Essex County Council said that each wireless laptop would be fitted with web monitoring and filtering tools to ensure that children could not access inappropriate material or chat rooms on the internet.

Discreet PC carriers which look like normal school bags will also be introduced, to prevent children being targeted by thieves.

Essex County Council said that after it rolls out the 200,000 laptops it intends to investigate ways of clustering learning institutions using wireless broadband, in a bid to improve communications between schools and increase the use of shared resources.