Alison Calls On UK Government To Embrace Free Learning

Feb. 22, 2008 - PRLog -- The final report of the Leitch Review of Skills, Prosperity for all in the global economy - world class skills, was published on the 5th of December, 2006. The report, which set out ambitious goals to boost literacy and training in workplaces by 2020, contends that the UK must urgently raise achievements at all levels of skills if it is to become a world leader in skills attainment, as benchmarked against the upper quartile of the OECD, and if it is to reverse diminishing competitiveness. While the review certainly recognizes the critical need to plug the skills gap, many believe that we any not any closer to reaching the goals set out by the report of “higher productivity, the creation of wealth and social justice” for all.

Mike Feerick, CEO of the online free learning service ALISON, believes that there are startling inefficiencies in the current approach and in particular training offered to small- and medium-sized businesses across the UK. “The commitment expressed in Leitch is the envy of the world”, according to Feerick. “But the delivery fails to recognize the profound shift the Internet has caused in terms of how training can be delivered and the resulting savings of money and time.” Although the government plans to increase educational spending to 5.6% of GDP by 2010-11 with £4.8 billion being spent on adult learning alone, much of this will be spent on traditional and expensive classroom-based learning.

According to Feerick, there is now the opportunity to achieve the bold ambitions of Leitch through insisting on value for money. In ICT (Information and Communications Technologies) education alone there is a wide array of freely accessible materials available on the Internet. ALISON itself delivered over 100,000 hours of free high quality interactive multimedia ICT learning to individual learners in the UK at no cost to the British tax payer over the past year.

In addition to value for money, Feerick believes that traditional training approaches impact businesses negatively in terms of time spent away from core activities. For example, a company with five employees, with one member of staff in training has effectively lost 20% of its workforce. “To be more effective, we would like to see the government thinking more about small and micro businesses, and how training will suit them, not just large businesses with dedicated training departments.” Feerick continued: “Highly affordable online learning provides maximum flexibility to the small- and medium-sized enterprise, as it affords participants the ability to learn at any time and from any place including the home.”

Feerick believes that there is also wide variation in standards among traditional providers funded by the government. “Online learning is transparent as anyone can quickly gauge the quality of the training on offer through simply logging in and sampling the learning provided”, according to Feerick. “How often do officials drop in to visit classrooms” he asks?  While online learning is not the full solution, as certain types of learning require ‘face-to-face’ time, group learning and practical real-life demonstrations, online learning can make up the majority of a total learning solution.

While Feerick is encouraged by the recent Department for Innovation, Universities & Skills (DIUS) report on informal adult learning commissioned by Secretary of State John Denham, which cited ALISON as a “new technology that is opening up the world of knowledge and offering new, flexible and exciting ways to learn”, he remains deeply concerned that a historical opportunity to affordably position the UK as a global skills leader is moving further away with each day that passes.

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ALISON.com is the world's leading free online learning resource for basic and essential workplace skills. ALISON provides high-quality, engaging, interactive multimedia courseware for certification and standards-based learning. All courses on ALISON are accessible for free to individual learners.

The mission of ALISON is to enable anyone, anywhere, to educate themselves for free via interactive self-paced multimedia.

Website: alison.com