BT Learning Centre will aggregate content from a range of educational suppliers that already provide material to schools, a move that will also pitch BT into the centre of the row surrounding the BBC's proposed digital curriculum.
Built around RM's Living Library research tool, which is already present in most schools, the subscription service will also allow pupils to access a range of education packages from providers including Granada Learning, Netmedia Education and Actis.
"Our research suggests that parents and children want to use the web to help with school work but information often takes too long to find or is not relevant," said the head of BT Learning Centre, Jennie Martin.
"We are providing children and parents with highly relevant, easy to use content, tailormade to their age group and available from just one place," she added.
But in launching the service BT is likely to become embroiled in the row surrounding the '150m the BBC plans to spend on the digital curriculum, which is expected to be given the go-ahead by education minister Charles Clarke tomorrow.
Educational publishers, many of which are powering the new Learning Centre service, have warned that they face going out of business if the BBC is allowed to give away material to schools for nothing.
More than 80 software and research titles will be available from launch via the Learning Centre service, with registered pupils able to change from one to another on a weekly basis in order to fit in with their curriculum.
When it launches in February, subscription to the service will cost '3.99 a month for access to the Living Library and two further titles. Further subscription options will allow access to more titles.
BT's content arm Openworld has launched a series of new broadband content sites over the last few months including Dotmusic, sports site Sportal, a classical music download service and Games Domain in an effort to provide services useful to high speed internet subscribers.
Guardian Unlimited ' Guardian Newspapers Limited 2001
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