Breakthrough on skills! Rejoice!
Posted in All posts, Learning, Silver Surfers
DU’s MD, Emma here! In the (digitally media driven) scramble to interpret Digital Britain, the complementary/ ‘feeder’ review into ICT User Skills by Baroness Estelle Morris got a bit overlooked. http://www.dius.gov.uk/ictuserskills
But this IS exciting, it recommends an entitlement for all adults to free ICT training, because ‘the elderly, those socially excluded and those with few qualifications are most at risk of being left behind in a world that becomes ever more digital.’ (Am I dreaming?) It outlines the importance of digital skills to the health and wellbeing of UK citizens as well as the wider economy. And it goes on:
“We must be ambitious about the level of ICT skills in the community. Increasingly, those who are not ICT literate will find themselves excluded as technology impacts on more parts of our lives. […] If this is to happen, the Government needs to have a clearer focus, be less bureaucratic and not as complex. It must work with its partners from the voluntary and private sector to persuade people that they need to learn computer skills and make it easy for them to do so.”
The idea of a funded entitlement to ICT skills training ‘for life’ (as opposed to vocational reasons) is something that takes me back to the heady days of ILAs, Individual Learning Accounts. You’ll remember probably the £100m fraud (Google ILA fraud and you’ll find yourself remembering) But ILAs were a brilliant idea, very simple, they were just appalling executed with the most astonishing failures not just of management once the system was running, but also in procurement of the back end management systems themselves.
At DU we’ve always thought that the idea of giving people choice over/in their learning, and supporting them to do some by incetivising it – whilst encouraging a range of local providers to meet those learning needs – was a great one. It creates a really virtuous, vibrant circle of learning and it also embeds learning into life, at home, in the community, for people wherever they are.
In fact the only thing that makes me feel unexcited is the ending of this press release: Government will consider further how it responds to Estelle Morris’s recommendations as the Digital Britain programme taken forward. PLEASE don’t let’s loose the momentum on this one.
June 17th, 2009 emma solomon | No Comments »
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