Lost and Found: the eskills revolution and unintended exclusion

1
Lost and Found the e-skills revolution and
unintended exclusion

• Joe Cullen
• Tavistock Institute,
• London

2
The current policy environment for e-skills

• E-Europe 2005 an inclusive knowledge-based
  society for all
• Lifelong Learning improving knowledge, skills,
  competences, active citizenship
• Lisbon strategy digital networks training
  trainers connect all schools and universities
  GRID technologies

3
New and neglected forms of exclusion

• New technologies used to help traditionally
  excluded groups
• People with disabilities
• Older people
• Ethnic minority groups
• Focus on knowledge society and e-skills itself
  exacerbating existing forms of exclusion
• And creating new forms

4
Types of exclusion covered

• Cognitive exclusion
• By-passed citizens
• Legacy skills
• Migrant workers
• At risk workers
• Offenders
• Societal exclusion
• Sectoral exclusion

5
Sources used

• Range of large EC funded research and RTD
  projects
• DELILAH e-learning and inclusion (TSER)
• COMPETE migration labour markets skills
  standards (TSER)
• POLE observatory on e-learning (SOCRATES)
• HERO offender rehabilitation (IST)
• COMPETENT European skills standardisation
  (e-TEN)

6
Cognitive Exclusion

• E-skills and e-learning typically use
  conventional forms of instructional material
• Text-based
• Produced by experts
• Evidence shows excluded groups need visual media
  true stories life narratives embedded in
  life world

7
Example Lea Valley Experiment

• High School in N. London - declining industry
  multi-ethnic poor performance
• Involved in DELILAH in ESP project - participant
  in Energy on the Move
• Objective open up access to richer learning
  opportunities with EU peers and experts
• Evaluate outcomes and impacts

8
Conclusions from Lea Valley

• Participation in e-learning environment improved
  students results in short term
• But in longer term actually made the less able
  students results worse
• At the same time improved the performance of the
  top students
• Therefore increased social exclusion
• Why? Because learning not embedded in family and
  community life
• And organisational culture of school resistant
  to new forms of learning

9
By-passed citizens

• E-skills and e-learning not relevant to life
  opportunities
• Large sections of labour market at risk from
  exclusion e.g. banking financial services call
  centres rapid evolution of e-skills
• Qualifications of migrant workers not recognised
  new imperialism
• Traditional skills still needed and not catered
  for e.g. engineers
• Institutional and isolated citizens - offenders

10
Example Connexions Card

• Introduced by UK government to integrate ET and
  careers services for young people
• Aimed in particular at 16-19 yrs at risk of
  dropping out
• Provides smartcard, web site, counselling
  services
• Attendance at college gives discounts on
  trainers, entertainment, transport
• BUT only works if you can afford to buy the
  products in the first place
• Another example of e-skills initiative separated
  from life world

11
Example Electronic village halls

• Imported from Scandinavia to inner city
  Manchester
• IT skills for single parents and Bangladeshi
  women
• Won Bangemann prize for e-skills approach
• But unsuccessful
• No social support e.g. creches
• Impossible to apply skills in local labour market

12
Good Practice Example Digital Learning Ring

• DLR and Computer Gym
• Provide collaborative learning environment in
  inner city residential estates (London and
  elsewhere)
• Equip residents with tools for re-invention of
  the self
• By providing learning to learn, embedded in
  local life world

13
By-passed citizens youth, offending

• Skills underworld
• Youth culture not linked to mainstream IST
  vision
• Crime and offending need to harness creative
  and illegitimate skills

14
HERO/One Spirit

• Aimed at learning for crime prevention
  (pre-crime)
• Targets at risk and offenders too young for
  prison
• Based on blended e-learning
• And life swapping getting young people to
  step into the shoes of offenders
• Linked to inmates on Death Row, St Quentin

15
Life Journeys Juvenile Crime in London to Death
Row, San Quentin
16
Societal exclusion

• E-skills uses human capital paradigm based on
  skills for jobs
• Emphasis on individual empowered individuals
• Market acceptance society as passive consumer
  of IST services
• Excludes societal aspects active citizenship
• EuroBarometer shows that for most people learning
  happens as part of everyday life
• Big demand for lifelong learning embedded within
  informal learning context
• But supply is overwhelmingly formal education and
  training
• Therefore supply not matched with demand

17
(No Transcript)
18
UK Community Spirit in Neighbourhoods
19
What do these data show?

• Investment in education on downward trend
  generally
• Counter-balanced by growth in community-based
  groups
• Reduction in traditional political participation
• Along with reduced active citizenship

20
Sectoral exclusion
21
Knowledge Transfer a new approach
Communities of Practice
Expert constituencies
Life Worlds
22
Some key problems

• Knowledge industries rapidly evolving
• Different standards structures
• E-skills highly contextualised and culturally
  adaptive
• Need to link to life chances and societal
  learning
• Disconnection between e-skills and local
  economies/labour markets (globalisation-localisati
  on effect)
• Exclusion not just access cognitive exclusion
• Sectoral exclusion knowledge transfer
• Legacy skills

23
Needs

• Evolving knowledge base on skills
• Embedded within local and global labour market
  data
• Standardisation through transparency not
  cross-walking
• E-skills relevant and contextualised
• Partnerships between society, market technology
• Recognises that society is endlessly re-shaping
  itself

24
COMPETENT

• e-TEN project
• Developing baseline for EU skills standards
  movement
• Capturing e-skills as they evolve and in their
  cultural and organisational context
• Developing standardisation through transparency
• Adaptation of USDOL ONET system

25
5 Scenarios

• SCENARIO 1 Support for By-passed citizens
  (Migrant Workers offenders Legacy skills)
• SCENARIO 2 New Jobs for Old - Regional
  Regeneration tools (with EURES cross-border
  partnerships)
• SCENARIO 3 New Opportunities for the Long Term
  Unemployed - Public Employment Service support
  tools
• SCENARIO 4 Human Resources Developer -
  Valorising the Company Asset Base
• SCENARIO 5 The Mobile Citizen - Cross Border
  Electronic Credentials Authentication tool