e-Learning foundation warns children are ill-equipped

eLearning

An e-Learning foundation in the UK has warned that children living in the poorest households in the country may never fully engage with the digital economy unless action is taken. With digital mediums becoming more and more crucial to business success, the issue highlights a potential future problem for HR leaders.

While the issue highlighted in today's news is UK-centric, it is easily applied to the US economy also. In fact, while statistics from Internet World Stats shows that 74.2 percent of Northern Americans are now online, the figures show that a number of Americans remain unconnected to the world wide web and are therefore not engaging with the digital economy.

"Severe poverty"

The warning, which has been made by the e-Learning Foundation - the UK's only national charity dedicated to eradicating the digital divide for schoolchildren in the UK - comes in light of a recent Save the Children report that found four million children are living in poverty in the UK and 1.7 million are in "severe poverty". According to the report, 19 percent of all children in London fall into this category. The report coincides with the release of the latest National Statistics Office’s Family Spending Survey figures.

Valerie Thompson, Chief Executive of the e-Learning Foundation, explained that "in an age when technology is all pervasive, it beggars belief that we still have to monitor the extent to which young learners have access to the internet and a computer at home for their education.

"Time is fast running out to bridge the digital divide in this country, engage parents in their children's learning and develop the whole family's IT skills to broaden their horizons and help them out of the poverty trap," concluded Thompson.

Next generation of workers

The concerns for HR leaders are obvious. Given that these children will one day become the next generation of workers, the chance that these people will be lacking in knowledge about technology and the internet - how critical components of global businesses operate - means that a refocusing of e-Learning is likely.

In the UK, for instance, the e-Learning Foundation is now playing a key role in the government's Home Access program. Launched in January the scheme aims to support schools keen to help their families to successfully apply for their Home Access grant and purchase a computer and one year of internet access. The program is set to help as many as 270,000 families in England.

Matthew Buttell

Matt Buttell graduated from Bath Spa University in 2006. Since then he has written for several publications, before moving to the web. He now writes solely for the internet, continuing to cover key business issues while managing his own personal blog.

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