Employment and Skills Formation Council

National Board of Employment, Education and Training

Converging Communications and Computer Technologies: Implications for Australia's Future Employment and Skills

Discussion Paper


Contents

Introduction

The Minister for Employment, Education and Training, the Hon Simon Crean MP has asked the Employment and Skills Formation Council (ESFC), through the National Board of Employment, Education and Training, to examine and report on current and emerging employment, education and training issues associated with the convergence of technologies in the communications and computer industries. In particular, the terms of reference require the Council to examine:

1. the impact of convergent communication and computer technologies on the nature of work, work organisation, productivity and quality;

2. the potential direct and indirect employment consequences arising from the growth of these technologies;

3. the knowledge, skills and attributes required within the workforce and the community more generally to drive further technological development and to take full advantage of the existing and emerging technologies; and

4. the ability of the education and training systems to equip the workforce and the community more generally with these skills.
A copy of the terms of reference is at Appendix A. The Council has until December 1995 to complete its work and present its advice to the Minister. Preliminary discussions with industry representatives and people with special expertise on particular aspects of communications and computing technologies were held in October 1994 in order to gain an initial impression of how Australian industry saw these technologies affecting their operations and the employment consequences this might hold for the future.

In addition, the Council plans to undertake a further, extensive process of consultations with relevant interests, to invite submissions and to develop a draft report as the basis for further comment prior to finalising its advice to the Minister. The principal consultations will occur over the period March to April 1995.

The ESFC is also conscious that a number of other reviews and inquiries relate in some degree to its own investigation. These include the recently completed report of the Australian Science and Technology Council (ASTEC) on Australia's research networks, The Networked Nation, the current review and preliminary report, Networking Australia's Future, by the Broadband Services Expert Group (BSEG), and Senate Committee inquiries on open learning and telecommunications post-2000. The findings of these other reports will be taken into account as they come to hand in the course of this reference.

The purpose of this paper is to undertake a preliminary canvassing of issues related to the terms of reference and to pose some questions as an aid to parties attending consultations or making written submissions. It is in no sense definitive and there may be other issues of equal or greater importance that merit consideration.

Individuals and organisations wishing to make formal submissions are invited to do so by Friday, 28 April 1995. Please include:

For individuals:

Your name, address, telephone number/e-mail address

Full referencing, where possible, for sources of data, studies or other secondary information referred to in the submission. For organisations:

Name and address of the organisation

Name, position and telephone number/e-mail address of a contact person

Full referencing, where possible, for sources of data, studies or other secondary information referred to in the submission.

It would greatly assist examination and collating of responses if respondents could use the relevant term(s) of reference to structure their submissions.

Submissions should be addressed to: Michael Moynihan
Adviser, Converging Technologies Reference
Employment and Skills Formation Council
GPO Box 9880
CANBERRA ACT 2605
Any inquiries can be made to: 06 240 9911 (phone) or
06 240 9901 (fax)
mmoynihan@nbeet.deet.gov.au
The Council is also interested in canvassing a very wide range of views and welcomes less formalised responses. If you have particular issues you feel should be brought to the ESFC's attention or views on any aspect of the terms of reference, please write to the above address or send an electronic mail (e-mail) response to mmoynihan@nbeet.deet.gov.au by 28 April 1995.

Note on terminology

The context

There is widespread agreement across industries that the rate of technological change continues to increase, in an environment where competitive pressures continue to climb.

These changes are particularly apparent in the information technology area, where the range of information needs, sources and suppliers is expanding and information management systems are becoming more and more sophisticated.

Rapid technological change is also occurring in the communications field. Once-distinct communications modes - for example telephony and video - are increasingly able to be delivered by a range of modes as digital streams of information. Alone or in combination, new compression technologies and broadband transmission open up new possibilities for both distributive (one-way) and interactive (two-way) communication and information. These developments are seen by many as having profound implications for the way people will work, interact, educate and entertain themselves in the future.

At the industry level, major consortia and strategic alliances are being formed between cable and telephone interests, media groups, and computer hardware and software producers to respond to the new opportunities for multimedia and information services over what is popularly known as the `information superhighway'. These are, for the most part, large corporations looking at global markets.

Many corporations in the media industries are also examining a shift in focus from traditional broadcast services to more targeted services (i.e. `narrowcast'). There is likely to be a very much larger number of channels and content providers in the future.

In turn, opportunities are increasing for smaller service providers to participate in areas such as the provision of on-line services, content and software development and network publishing.

Consumers are also responding to the new communicative possibilities. The growth of the Internet - a global network of computer networks that communicate with each other over public and private transmission facilities - is a case in point.

The most recent estimates from the Internet Society (February 1995) indicate that some 90 countries, just under 5 million machines and some 50 million users world-wide are connected to the Internet.

Internet-connected machines in Australia currently number around 160,000 (or about 1.6 million users) which is an increase of over 400 per cent (i.e. by a factor of 4) in the last 3 years and a 20 per cent increase in the last quarter of 1994. By contrast, however, Internet growth in many other countries has been much greater over the three-year period: Japan, Italy, Spain, Denmark Korea and Taiwan have recorded growth by factors of 10 or more; New Zealand, by a factor of 27; Belgium by a factor of 52 and the USA by a remarkable 311 times its January 1992 level of Internet connections.

Through the Internet both individuals and corporations can send and receive electronic mail (e-mail), data, voice and graphics around the world with increasing ease and speed and, depending upon the available bandwidth, to communicate interactively and, to some degree, visually. Even over standard telephone cables, 'talk' and 'chat' applications enable users to communicate interactively orally or in writing, in the latter case both one-to-one and many-to-many.

The growth in mobile telephony is also a world-wide phenomenon. In Australia the number of mobile phones is estimated to double every 8 months. In combination, a mobile phone, portable PC and a modem provide access to global communications networks previously restricted to fixed, stationary equipment. As a recent report simply put it, the emerging communications environment is enabling people to communicate 'from anywhere to anywhere' (BTCE, 1994).

By contrast with highly mobile digital 'packets' of data delivered over digital or analogue networks, compact disk-read only memory (CD-ROM) represents 'embedded' or stored communications. While consumers have been quick to adopt music Compact Disks (CDs), they have been slower to embrace CD-ROM as a communications technology. This now appears to be changing with the recent substantial increase in available titles (Cutler, 1994). These provide varying levels of user interaction and range from games, to training packages, to corporate information, to a large field of professional, artistic and recreational content (Cutler, 1994). In addition, the cost of CD-ROM drives has declined to the point where they are now becoming a standard storage mechanism incorporated into personal computer. This development greatly increases the potential market for CD-ROM publishing.

At the governmental level, an increasing number of countries are investigating how to position themselves to make the best use of communications technologies and to ensure the benefits are widely shared within their communities. The USA, Canada, Japan, the United Kingdom, the European Union and Singapore all have processes underway to examine the implications of the new and emerging communications technologies.

In Australia, the Commonwealth Government has established a Broadband Services Expert Group (BSEG) to examine and report on how policy might best respond to these particular technological innovations. In its interim report of July 1994, Networking Australia's Future, the BSEG identified six key issues for Australia:

The BSEG also advanced a number of key principles as the basis of an Australian vision for broadband services:

The BSEG's final report is expected to be available by early March 1995. Developments in the information and communications fields are the ones most widely reported. But the changes taking place in these areas are also increasingly flowing to other areas of industry activity - whether one looks at manufacturing or services, or the private or public sector. More and more, these appear to be emerging as the underpinning technologies upon which other technological innovation, and the growth of innovative services, depends.

Thus, in looking at converging technologies as described above, there is a need to consider more widely the skills in demand - or likely to be in demand in the future - in each of the constituent technologies.

In this regard, there appears to be a growing demand for people with skills relevant to the computing and communications technological areas. In the twelve months to January 1995, for example, demand for computing professionals increased by 86 per cent, to a new all-time peak. Demand for electrical and electronic tradespeople also rose steeply over the same period - an increase of almost 110 per cent - though from a lower base (Skilled Vacancy Survey, January 1995 DEET).

The present investigation also occurs against a background of increasing interest in multimedia and the trade, cultural and creativity implications of this relatively new, but rapidly growing, industry. As estimated in a recent report to the Broadband Services Expert Group (BSEG), Australian content industries related to the interactive multimedia industry generate total revenues in the order of $9 billion a year (Cutler, 1994). These industries are forecast to grow very strongly on a global basis: the extent to which Australia participates in that growth will depend in part on how well it fosters the creative and technical skills demanded by the new medium.

In the Prime Minister's cultural statement, Creative Nation, of October 1994, the linkages between Australian culture, creativity and new technologies were underscored in describing the Commonwealth's role in cultural development. The statement identified 5 principal areas of government involvement, recognising that the Commonwealth is but one player among many:

The statement then addressed the education and training implications of these objectives, noting that, 'if Australia is to retain its global reputation for innovation in the arts, a commitment to training in new forms of technology is essential'.

Technology and the enterprise

Term of reference 1:

'The impact of convergent communication and computer technologies on the nature of work, work organisation, productivity and quality...'
The impact of these technologies will depend in large measure upon their rate of adoption by enterprises both in Australia and abroad. It will depend also on the level of community acceptance and use of the new services which these technologies make possible.

In relation to broadband services, current uncertainties about likely industry and consumer demand can also affect the rate of investment in the physical infrastructure needed to make them widely available. However, many electronic communications functions do not depend upon the kind of bandwidth available over end-to-end broadband networks: e-mail and the bulk of data-file transfers can be performed very efficiently over the existing public telephone network, particularly with high-speed modems and data compression. Even from this source, though, rapid increases in aggregate demand may make broadband networks both necessary and viable.

In part, it is a question of achieving critical mass. As the Australian Science and Technology Council (ASTEC) has noted in relation to Internet-type services, 'The history of new technologies suggests that 'getting a foothold' in the market can take time, but once a certain level of market penetration is achieved the 'take-off' is rapid and widespread acceptance of the product occurs quickly' (The Networked Nation, 1994). For example, facsimile technology has been around since the mid-1970s but facsimile machines only came into widespread commercial use in the mid-1980s. Similarly, the full impact of the new communications technologies and the services they make available will depend upon the rate of take-up and the range of ways in which the technologies are utilised.

Some of the ways in which Australian enterprises expect to utilise these technologies were identified during the Council's preliminary discussions in October 1994. These include:

How, and to what extent, enterprises utilise the technological possibilities of many of these developments will determine the degree to which they succeed in improving access to and dissemination of information, focusing on customer preferences, increasing organisational efficiency and effectiveness and enhancing the quality-to-cost ratio for goods and services.

Whether these benefits materialise, however, will also depend on how successfully the technologies are strategically integrated within the enterprise, and the human relations environment into which they are introduced.

For particular industry sectors the potential benefits appear to be more obvious and more immediate. Generally, software applications developers, libraries and databases for on-line delivery, multimedia producers and value-added network resellers face a large and growing market of domestic and business consumers. The development of on-line shopping services - while at an early stage of development currently - and the creation of 'virtual shopping malls' can be expected to create additional demand for graphical interfaces and applications. At the same time, the global accessibility of information, the volume of available information and the need to both find it and filter it, is likely to see continued growth in electronic news and information services.

The Council also wishes to examine how developments such as global networks, video-conferencing and electronic data exchange can lead to further improvements in productivity and quality.

The rate of development of electronic trading and on-line services also depends to a large degree on how successfully issues such as privacy and confidentiality, security and authentication, public access and the maintenance of cultural identity are addressed. In responding to this term of reference you may wish to consider:

What will be the effect of these technologies on:

What can we learn from our recent experience (e.g. of e-mail, workgroup applications, and telecommuting)?

What are likely to be the most effective ways to introduce these technologies in order to realise the potential gains to productivity and quality?

What models of good practice exist for the successful strategic integration of these technologies?

What new issues might emerge with the development of fully networked interactive multimedia?

Employment prospects

Term of reference 2:

'The potential direct and indirect employment consequences arising from the growth of these technologies...'

This section discusses likely employment effects of communications technologies, while the next section focuses more directly on skills implications. It would be unwise to specify the occupational structure likely to prevail in, say, five to ten years' time. Culture, customer tastes, investment, choice of technologies, regulatory arrangements, research and development, discovery and innovation are among the many factors that have a role in shaping future demand and supply and hence the occupational composition of employment. Added to this, the functional content of any given occupation - with some exceptions - varies greatly across industries and increasingly within industries as enterprises pursue innovative solutions to local functional needs. It is also likely that many of the jobs that exist at present will not exist in ten years' time: for example, those jobs associated with input of data and transaction processing will continue to decline in number.

At a broad level, however, some trends can reasonably be expected to continue and, in some cases, accelerate. Low skilled jobs have been in relative decline for many years and can be expected to continue to do so. Similarly, the growth of part-time employment is expected to continue.

The trend towards outsourcing and contracting-out of services - and in particular of specialised services - also appears set to continue. Interactive video conferencing may add further impetus to this trend, since specialised knowledge-based service providers and professionals will be able to service much larger, geographically-dispersed markets. This may have the effect of intensifying the level of specialisation itself, as well as intensifying global competition, as professionals target more minutely-defined market segments in global markets in order to develop a competitive advantage.

However, there is already a growing requirement by large companies for their sub-contractors to be able to transfer data, graphics, design details and tenders electronically. Additional demands will therefore be placed on the skills and computing infrastructure (and thus on capital investment) of small firms. In other industry sectors (for example, retail) responsibility for electronic monitoring and restocking is tending to shift from the chain-stores to their suppliers. Again, smaller firms will be faced with a new range of requirements, including for example bar-coding, sales analysis, delivery scheduling and data-gathering, well beyond the maintenance of traditional inventory systems.

As identified in the Australian Manufacturing Council's report, Emerging Exporters, a characteristic of many of the high-performance small and medium sized exporting firms is their strong technical capacity.

On the other hand, some employers are seeking staff with less technically specialised skills and stronger generalist skills. Is there a tension between a strong generalist base and high levels of technical specialisation?

The average annual growth rates for a range of computing specialists have been strong over a number of years. A 1990 report on computing personnel estimated total average employment growth for the period 1988 to 1990 at 14 per cent with strongest growth for technical support specialists, communications specialists, database managers and systems trainers (Education and training needs of computing professionals and para-professionals in Australia, DEET 1990). The report found that the greatest concentrations of computing employment were in Finance, Property and Business Services (nearly 40 per cent), followed by Wholesale and Retail (15.6 per cent), Public Administration (11.8 per cent), Community Services, Health, Recreation and Other (11.1 per cent) and Manufacturing (10.9 per cent).

Computer and communications professionals are likely to continue to be in high demand as demand for more sophisticated networks, network management and more interactive communications grows.

It is probable however that there will be some merging of the underlying skills required in both cases. As indicated earlier, the development of electronic trading, and the likely demand for visually attractive customer interfaces together with multimedia applications suggests that the demand for graphic artists with strong communications technology skills will be substantial.

More generally, strong demand growth is widely predicted for content and many of the new jobs likely to be generated over the next 5 years can be expected to be in content provision.

The growth of interconnected, wide area networks also offers greatly enhanced opportunities for network publishing: individuals, as well as educational establishments, professional and industry organisations and large and small businesses now have the capacity to publish electronically, including multimedia material. Traditionally, publishing has required both the production of a physical product (e.g. a book, newspaper, magazine or newsletter) with significant capital investment in plant, and a distributive system for delivering the product to the consumer.

With networked publishing, the infrastructure costs are minimal and publishers have the choice between electronically distributing their publications or setting up an electronic address where the targeted audience can elect to receive regular editions of a publication or actively visit the address to read or download the publication. As a result, there has been an explosive growth in the number of electronic magazines (or e-zines) ranging from small coterie groups of individuals to large-scale electronic publishing businesses.

The skills involved in network publishing are therefore likely to be in high demand, as this medium of publishing continues its rapid growth.

Services to the home are also identified as a growth area by most commentators on the communications industry. Consumption of traditional services to the home - like cleaning, gardening and home delivery - appear to be increasing. In addition, there is a range of new and emerging services which have the potential to grow rapidly where suitable communications infrastructure is available. These include transactional services, such as home shopping and banking, document and news retrieval and on-line reservation systems, and a range of other home entertainment and information services.

The actual employment effects of technological innovation are far from certain. Introduction of new communications technologies can have at least two broad effects. It can lead to the introduction of new products and services which either better address existing needs or give rise to new consumer demands. While product innovations can be thought of as usually generating employment, with process innovation this is less certain. The latter affects the way work is done and can be thought of as generally being labour saving innovations. If demand for the product remained unchanged then the increase in productivity would result in a reduced labour requirement that may lead to labour shedding in the industry. That is, the full employment impact of the introduction of new technology cannot be determined from the nature of the technology itself.

Self employment, including home-based self employment, has been growing over the period since 1986, with most of the growth occurring since 1990 (ABS). The new communications technologies - by supporting both mobility and interaction - tend to facilitate self employment as an option.

The Council has commissioned a study that will address in part both this and the preceding term of reference. It is interested in learning of other work that is available or underway that may assist it in addressing the employment issues. In responding to this term of reference you may wish to consider:

Technological skills for the future

Term of reference 3:

'The knowledge, skills and attributes required within the workforce and the community more generally to drive further technological development and to take full advantage of existing and emerging technologies...'

Three considerations are particularly pertinent in relation to this term of reference. First, is the ever-increasing pace of change and the need to equip individuals with the skills, knowledge and attributes (hereafter, abbreviated to 'skills') for dealing with change and future uncertainty.

The second consideration, is the capacity of the emerging communications technologies to rob distance of much of its meaning: both face-to-face video interaction and globalisation are major likely components of the future world of work and carry with them implications for the kinds of skills needed to operate effectively in a global environment.

Third, when combined with other developments such as out-sourcing or contracting-out and the growth in self-employment, there is a continuing and growing need for individuals to be equipped to create their own employment opportunities. This has implications both for the skills individuals bring to the marketplace and their personal attributes.

In relation to the first point, the Council has argued elsewhere (e.g. Raising the Standard, Middle Level Skills in the Australian Workforce) that individuals need a range of skills to equip them for employment in a rapidly changing environment. The core of these skills is embodied in the key (or generic) competencies which are designed to underpin a sound general education and prepare young people for employment.

The key competencies were first outlined in the Finn Report (Young People's Participation in Post-Compulsory Education and Training, 1991) and further refined and described by the Mayer Committee (1992). The seven key competencies (see below) provide the basis for further education and training as well as for employment. They are integral to the Australian Vocational Training System (AVTS) which is to be implemented progressively from 1 January 1995. Key competencies

Attainment of the key competencies at an appropriate level is an essential foundation for meeting the demands created by a changed, and changing, work environment. However, the Council has recognised that beyond entry-level employment, these competencies need to be extended by the development of broad-based technical and work team social skills, as well as increased self-management and thinking/cognitive skills. These skills, combined with the key competencies, will provide individuals with the ability to respond flexibly to changing environments and different work contexts.

The key competencies provide the foundation for subsequent learning and specialisation. But equally important, they provide the breadth of skills to enable individuals to respond flexibly to changing environments and contexts.

Given both the pace of change and the increasing knowledge-intensity of work the Council believes that a critical factor is for individuals to have 'learned how to learn' in an environment where a capacity for life-long learning has increasingly become a condition of employability.

The need for life-long learning also raises issues of how young children are introduced to learning and whether their experience of formal education stimulates or stifles their desire to learn: this is as much a question of fostering positive attitudes to continuing learning as providing the student with the technical skills that might enable them to do so.

At a broad level, the new opportunities for increased face-to-face (whether physical or virtual) communications between staff and with clients and suppliers entail improving social and managerial/strategic skills while continuing to develop high level technical skills.

As mentioned earlier, the new communications technologies appear likely to intensify the globalisation of trade which has already expanded substantially in recent years. An underlying proficiency in the use of computer-based communications software may become an essential technical skill within a relatively short period.

However, the development of more intuitive and user-friendly software may reduce the level of formal skills for routine communications tasks such as e-mail and data transmission. Of perhaps greater importance in the new environment will be the development of strong interpersonal and presentational skills together with a highly developed sensitivity to differing cultural contexts.

To the extent that business continues its current trend towards outsourcing for specialised services - a trend particularly noticeable in relation to the communications and information technology and training areas - individuals will need the capacity to identify and create new employment opportunities for themselves. This would appear to call for a level of entrepreneurship and self-directed effort that is not widely understood or fostered within the Australian community at present.

Looking more widely at the Australian community, there is a general issue of consumers' competence with computer-based skills and of attitudes towards such technology. Related to this, there are also substantial transitional problems for workers - and particularly older workers - who do not currently have computer skills, as this technology becomes more pervasive and integrated with other workplace and social activities.

To some extent, these disadvantages will be offset by improvements to software applications through, for example, the development of effective and low-cost voice recognition software and less complex interfaces for computer-based communications. However, this will not represent an effective alternative to the lack of strong computer and communications skills in a work environment that is increasingly based on computer literacy.

In terms of the Australian community generally, one of the issues that needs to be addressed is: how can adults without computing skills be motivated to acquire them?

For particular disadvantaged groups the communications technologies potentially offer substantial benefits, provided issues of access, cost and training can be adequately addressed. For Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, and other Australians living in remote communities, video-conferencing, and applications that enable written and voice interactive communication, can off-set many of the distance barriers they currently face. While one group of Aboriginal communities, living in the Tanami region, has established full video-conferencing facilities, elsewhere there appears at present to have been little development of computer-based communications facilities.

Similar considerations apply to rural communities. Computer applications and electronic information systems have been developed for farm and environmental management, but until the farming communities have access to computers and appropriate communications tools, the opportunities for improved management potentially available through these technologies will be denied to them.

There are also gender issues that need to be addressed with regard to access to communications technology generally and equitable access to such equipment within the education and training systems.

For people with disabilities, current developments in voice recognition applications and in voice communications software offer the prospect of improved communication for a range of physically disabled people. In most cases, the lack of skills to utilise these applications, the set-up costs for the hardware and software and the need for systems to be significantly easier for people to operate than at present, all militate against effective access to the improved electronic communications. In responding to this term of reference you may wish to consider:

Education and training provision

Term of reference 4:

`The ability of the education and training systems to equip the workforce and the community more generally with these skills'

There are a number of issues the Council is seeking to address under this term of reference.

The first relates to the need for individuals to learn how to make the best use of communications technologies. While all the learning ramifications of this point still need to be identified, the centrality of computers and software applications to information management, to industrial and graphical design, and to musical composition - over and above basic keyboard skills - suggests that the domain of education and training solely in relation to computers is already very large. When the range of communications possibilities are added to this - formal distance (and even on-line) learning, networks, communications applications and search tools to name only a few - the field of relevant learning extends over (or is integral to) many spheres of human activity.

The second broad issue involves the use communications technologies and their related networks for further learning. When taken in conjunction with the rich resources of the Internet, these technologies provide an ongoing basis for both collaborative learning and individual discovery.

In the past 2-3 years, there have been important developments in distance education and open learning. These include, for example, the establishment of bodies such as the Open Learning Agency (OLA), the Open Learning Technology Corporation (OLTC), the Committee for Advanced University Teaching (CAUT) and Openet and associated changes in the way distance education is delivered by universities.

A 1992 report of the National Board of Employment, Education and Training commented that: 'advances in technology are rapidly eroding any theoretical distinction between distance and conventional education. Education in all institutions is becoming multi-media education, admittedly more slowly in some places than others, but the process is advancing to the point where, through the enterprise of academics and the demands of students, the thoroughly conventional classroom lecture plus tutorial, with no other mode of delivery or interaction, may in our lifetime become a minority activity in universities.' (Changing patterns of education and learning, NBEET 1992)

There are important implications for the nature of education and learning that flow from these observations. While sounding a note of caution about defining open learning primarily in terms of the technologies employed, the Senate Employment, Education and Training References Committee noted in its recent report that: 'The variety of technologies to deliver open learning...supports the notion of self-directed learning.' (Inquiry into the development of open learning in Australia, Part 1, Commonwealth of Australia, 1994).

Nested under these broad considerations are a range of equally important issues. If these technologies are so pivotal to information discovery and retrieval, problem-solving, creative expression, design and on-going learning then access to them becomes a critical issue across the education and training systems, within workplaces and throughout the wider community. Since the technologies also have the capacity to reduce the barriers of geographical remoteness, social isolation and disability, there are important equity considerations involved.

There appear to be two distinguishable components to access: access to computers and related equipment and applications; and access to communications networks (or 'connectivity').

At present around 40 per cent of Australian households have personal computers (i.e. excluding special purpose games machines). While the level of domestic ownership of computers continues to rise, the majority of individuals depend for access on either their workplace (for those employed) or upon their education or training institution or provider. However, even where households have a personal computer, few (about 5 per cent) of these are networked.

For full-time employees in administrative, technical, professional, para-professional and management roles in medium and large firms, it is probable that computer access is seldom an issue. With small firms (i.e. those with less than 20 employees) and for non-clerical, casual and part-time employees access to a computer is likely to be more problematical.

Within the education and training systems the higher education sector appears to be best equipped in terms of computer equipment and software while the situation with regard to TAFE colleges and schools appears to be very patchy.

Given the size of the school-age population - in the order of 3.5 million - there are substantial investment implications in equipping schools and classes with the optimum level of computers. In addition, it is not clear what an optimum level of computers would be. Is it, for example, necessarily a one-to-one relationship of equipment to student? Or is there a satisfactory level of shared use consistent with the needs of students and the need for periodic upgrades to equipment and software? There is also the issue of how this equipment is supplied: whether schools need to fund purchase or hire and whether equipment suppliers may have a longer-term interest in making their equipment available on favourable terms for use by what will be their next generation of customers.

A further issue which arises in relation to computers and their use in schools (and to some extent, within TAFE) is the manner in which they are utilised. Earlier studies have noted that computers have tended to be used primarily for word processing or for the study of computers and computing. However, if teachers are to make better use of computers across the curriculum there is a need for appropriate software and a means of identifying and evaluating it ('Implications of context-based software development for education', Russell G. Australian Journal of Education, v39 n2 1994, pp 157-173).

In terms of communications access (including to the Internet) the higher education sector is substantially ahead of the other sectors. The Australian Academic Research Network (AARNet), on behalf of the Australian Vice-Chancellors' Committee and the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), operates the national academic network which extends across most campuses and provides the gateway for Australia's link to the Internet. These arrangements are currently under review.

Academics have now had some years' experience in operating within the globally networked academic community and are increasingly aware of the huge information resources available within it. For schools and TAFE colleges, connection to AARNet (and hence the Internet) still appears to be uncommon. There is anecdotal evidence that some universities provide access to some local schools and TAFE colleges (and to community groups in some instances) but this is generally an informal and discretionary arrangement.

In view of the widespread perception amongst educationalists and commentators familiar with the Internet, that it constitutes a powerful tool for learning, there would seem to be strong grounds for addressing the obstacles to connection at the school and TAFE level, both in relation to students and for the teachers/facilitators themselves. Amongst the factors that need to be examined in this context are the charging regime for connection to AARNet and the costs associated with purchasing additional lines of sufficient capacity from the telecommunications carriers.

A further issue for consideration in this context is the provision of communications management and support infrastructure at both the systemic and individual establishment level. This relates to the formal professional training and development of educational staff, the personal support or mentoring available to them to make the transition to new technologies and the expert resources provided to staff so that they can make the best pedagogical use of applications.

As discussed in relation to Term of reference 1, the successful introduction of new technology needs to have regard to the human relations climate and the culture of the organisation into which it is introduced. This is equally true for education and training institutions. Like other workers, teachers can feel threatened by a technology that has substantial implications both for what they teach and how they teach it: indeed one of the critical issues the ESFC wishes to explore in this area, is the change in orientation from teacher-centred education to student-oriented self-managed learning. The Council is also seeking to examine successful ways of managing the introduction of communications technologies, including successful strategies for gaining staff co-operation in accepting and learning to utilise these technologies.

While it appears to be the case that the level of communications technology utilisation within schools and TAFE is generally low (with some notable exceptions) the actual situation with regard to equipment levels and range of use needs clarification. To that end, the Council has commissioned a report which will provide a more detailed and up-to-date picture of the current situation across the higher education, TAFE and schools systems. In responding to this term of reference you may wish to consider:


APPENDIX A

CONVERGING TECHNOLOGIES AND EMPLOYMENT, EDUCATION AND TRAINING ISSUES

TERMS OF REFERENCE

That the Employment and Skills Formation Council of the National Board of Employment, Education and Training:

In particular, the Council is asked to examine:

In developing a picture of the employment opportunities the Council can examine feasible employment scenarios such as those initially presented in Australia's Workforce in the Year 2001 (DEET, 1991) taking into account the dynamic technological changes now emerging.

The process of developing a response to this reference should serve as a means of stimulating informed debate, particularly in the business and industry and education and training sectors. To achieve this the Council might consider preparing a discussion paper similar to TAFE in the 1990s: Developing Australia's Skills, as the first stage of the process.

The Council has been asked to report within eighteen months of the date of the reference.

(Reference forwarded to the National Board by the Hon Simon Crean MP, Minister for Employment, Education and Training, on 25 July, 1994)