Digital Britain: Implications for adult learners and providers - Repeat Briefing

[Background] [Aims] [Audience] [Programme] [Application Form]

Background

When Lord Carter’s Digital Britain report was published in June 2009 it drew together a number of important policy issues which will impact directly on all UK citizens. Whilst NIACE welcomes the potential benefits of Britain developing world class digital networks, there are real challenges if we are to ensure that all adults have the  access to learning they need so that they can keep pace with change.

The report warns: Those without access to the Internet suffer economic disadvantage. Their opportunities and livelihoods can be compromised by exclusion from the digital world. Research also tells us that there are absolute correlations between adults who are on the wrong side of the digital divide, the learning divide and the economic divide.

In addition to some impressive sounding technical infrastructure developments around "tubes, pipes and networks", the report offers a vision of a highly connected community and recognises the need for a Digital Participation Plan led by the broadcasting regulator, Ofcom. In addition a Digital Inclusion Task force is created, headed up by Digital Inclusion Champion – Martha Lane Fox.

‘Digital Life Skills’ are central to the success of this plan and the report takes account of Baroness Estelle Morris’s independent review of adult ICT skills which recommends an ‘entitlement’ to nine hours of training.

One of the ‘digital dividends’ resulting from the rollout of digital audio broadcasting will be the freeing up of FM capacity making way for ‘ultra-local’ radio stations. This will widen further our access as citizens to the airwaves. Added to this is the explosion of opportunities for people to publish for themselves online. In order to  be active participants in community life, it is increasingly important for adults to be able to acquire not only the technical and language skills needed to create communications in a variety of contexts but also to recognise the rights and responsibilities associated with making adults’ digital voices heard.

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Aims

The aim of this event is to air both the opportunities and challenges for adult learners that NIACE has identified within the Digital Britain report.

The report provides a vision of a journey to the future without answering all of the questions about how we will get there. This policy briefing will offer a chance
to explore these questions and more.

• How can we engage with the 17 million people who are still excluded from digital technology?
• How will the nine hours of Digital Life Skill entitlement be funded and how can we be sure that the support will meet the needs of people who have been the last to join the digital world?
• Will the quite reasonable attempts to protect Intellectual Property have a perverse effect and restrict reasonable access to materials by learners?
• How will we make sure adults have the skills needed to flourish in a digital world?
• With a predicted flowering of ‘ultra local’ sound broadcasting from 2015 and online publishing are we about to witness a new need for learning programmes which reflect the rights and responsibilities of citizen publishers?
• How will teachers of adults maintain their knowledge and skills in the world of increasing technological diversity?
• Will provision of superfast broadband to urban areas actually lead us to a new urban / rural digital divide?

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Audience

This event will be aimed at anyone with a professional or personal interest in the impact of digital technologies on the future of adult learning in Britain – including adult learning practitioners across all sectors, policymakers and opinion-formers, strategists and managers.

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Programme

09:45 Arrival and registration (tea/coffee available)

10:15 Welcome and introduction to the day from the Chair
Alastair Thomson, Principal Advocacy Officer, NIACE

10:30 Digital learning in a Digital Britain
Alastair Clark, Senior Programme Director – Digital Learning, NIACE

11:00 Digital participation – what are the issues?
Rachel Thomson, Senior Programme Director - Campaigns, NIACE

11:30 Questions and discussion and closing remarks

12:00 Lunch and networking (tea/coffee available)

12:30 Depart

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Application Form