Opportunities for work and learning
By Maggie Holgate, Life with Technology
There are an increasing number of recruitment agencies online and many organisations
carry job ads on their corporate pages. However, my feeling is that at the
moment the people who are looking for employment through these services
are, in the main, accessing them from their current workplaces; in other
words these people are employed, not unemployed, and they are also more
than likely to work in the IT industry in some capacity or other.
This raises the crucial issue of access and the need for genuinely free
and open access to the Internet in libraries, schools and other centres
- indeed any and every communication and information-gathering point relevant
to communities. However, unless people feel they 'own' that technology,
they will not use it. If the Internet is truly to benefit the unemployed
and other groups within society, supportive and relevant training in how
to use it is also essential, as is relevant content.
There is enormous scope for online tutorials in job search skills, creating
CVs and so on, but there is also potential to use the Internet as a delivery
medium to teach new skills which will make people more employable in the
21st century. The approach, though, needs to be innovative. With a little
imagination the Internet could be used to demonstrate how flexible learning
and work practices are now part of our culture, and it could therefore play
a vital role in raising awareness of the changing nature of 'work'.
Maggie Holgate, Life with Technology
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