Schools across the UK are hosting computer workshops this week as part of a government initiative to make parents aware of the educational benefits of the net.

The Department for Education hopes that the week's activities will spark long-term commitment from schools to provide out-of-hours net support for parents.

To launch the week, children and their parents took part in a series of web-based activities at the Kingwood City Learning Centre in Fulham, London.

The Parents Online site is intended to help parents and children make the most of educational facilities on the net. It has a range of learning activities as well as links to other educational sites and information about net safety.

Safety concerns

Website has activities for all age ranges

The website is in its third year and has attracted interest from nearly a thousand schools, which have all agreed to provide some form of net activities for parents and children.

It is beginning to attract international attention from schools as far away as Afghanistan. Swedish and Israeli schools have also registered on the site.

Doug Brown, Divisional Manager of Information and Communication Technology at the Department of Education, said getting parents involved is crucial.

"Parents are obviously concerned with net safety issues and they tend to hear only about the problems and not the benefits," he explained.

"It is crucial that parents have an understanding of what the internet is and find out about the value of e-learning," he told BBC News Online.

According to the latest figures from the Department for Education, nearly all UK schools have some form of internet access.

This contrasts with just 43% of the population who have internet access at home.

Cost issues

The lack of a home computer should not deter parents from becoming e-literate and making use of the web for their childrens' education though said Mr Brown.

"There is now the ability for everyone to get net access with 6,000 UK Online centres around the country and many libraries providing free access," he said.

Parents at the event in Fulham expressed their support for the scheme, although several pointed out that the cost of net access was still a barrier to letting their children online at home.

Worries about safety meant that most parents did not allow their children unsupervised access to the net.