European Commissioner speaks up for e-learning

Citation

(2003), "European Commissioner speaks up for e-learning", Journal of European Industrial Training, Vol. 27 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/jeit.2003.00327aab.004

European Commissioner speaks up for e-learning

European Commissioner speaks up for e-learning

Knowledge is the key differentiator of competitive advantage in the modern economy, says European education and training commissioner Viviane Reding.

She told the British chamber of commerce in Belgium that the role of information and communication technology in helping to facilitate this knowledge was crucial. Ensuring young people were equipped with the necessary skills would be essential. "Recent studies have shown that employers are increasingly looking for these higher or wider competencies when they recruit staff," said Mrs Reding.

The best way of providing the infrastructure for e-learning was through public-private partnerships. There were also important lessons to learn from early mistakes in e-learning.

"Isolation of the learner through lack of support or interaction led to the failure of many early efforts," she said. "Learning is a social process that requires engagement of the learner with the learning material, and interaction between learner and teacher and between learners themselves. There is now a recognition that e-learning needs to complement, rather than replace, traditional teaching, and that teachers, broadcasters and publishers have a key role to play in providing the right content and teaching methods."

Mrs Reding concluded, "Making sure that European citizens have the ability to learn, not only about and with new technologies, but also on an ongoing basis, is key to Europe's development. Lifelong learning is clearly an essential enabler for the knowledge society – just as important, if not more so, than technological infrastructure".