The Ministry of Education is under fire after revelations at least two south Auckland schools still haven't got all the devices and modems they asked for during the Covid-19 lockdown.

Meanwhile, Auckland Grammar School has 137 modems it doesn't need, worth $70,000.

The Ministry's Ellen MacGregor-Reid told Heather du Plessis-Allan they'll be working with schools on reallocating the gear to homes who need them.

"Basically, working with over 800,000 addresses, some of those addresses were wrong, and we're fixing that now."

She says tghey didn't phone schools during lockdown, as they used data from a system called 'Enrol'.

"We asked schools if they were able to validate those addresses, but it's been unprecedented times, schools were busy, some errors came into play and we're prepared to own that."

MacGregor-Reid says $36 million in total was spent on devices and modems.

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