Working and learning together: ICT supported learning in small businesses

Information and communications technologies (ICT) sit at the centre of lifelong learning policy in the UK. Considerable public expenditure is being applied to the creation of on-line learning and on-line learner information services. These are seen as having a major role in stimulating learning in small businesses. The small business sector has traditionally proved reluctant to engage in structured programmes of employee development. While policy is finding application through significant spending on new infrastructure, insufficient attention is being paid to the ways in which those in the workplace learn and learn about learning.

Drawing on research carried out in Scotland, this paper suggests that the development of ICT supported work-based learning will result in significant changes in learning relationships and in the sources from which learners seek support. The effective development of learning in small businesses is dependent on the radical changes in technology associated with ICT being matched by equally radical changes in the way that work-based learning is conceptualised and organised. In particular, the potential of new learning relationships must be recognised and taken fully into account in planning and implementing work-based learning programmes. While positive for learners and the businesses in which they work, the changes in roles and relationships which the adoption of this perspective will involve will challenge and are likely to marginalize traditional players in the learning market.