The government's dream of a greater e-Britain needs a lot more
attention to fundamentals to become a truly valuable reality,
argues Simon Moores.
Let's get the good news out of the way first. Britain is the second
best place in the world for e-business according to an independent
report by Booz Allen Hamilton entitled,
The world's most
effective policies for the e-economy.
Once the cheering has subsided, I can also tell you that it's a
very substantial report, packed with colourful graphs and useful
information on all things "e".
The good news was delivered at this week's e-Summit in London. A
parade of government ministers and international e-envoys were
there to support our own e-envoy Andrew Pinder and the prime
minister, who told us that we were doing well "but not well enough"
in our race to build this elusive thing called a knowledge
economy.
"They're all very polished," remarked one journalist, as he
listened to Patricia Hewitt pressing the government's arguments
home. "And I suppose that if a minister talks like a duck and walks
like a duck, then, we, the public have to believe it's a duck, even
if there's some furious paddling below the waterline and the
message itself is so very general in its nature that it defies any
solid criticism."
Digby Jones of the CBI threw a polite spanner into the works by
suggesting that as a nation "we were in danger of sleepwalking into
decline" and warned the government that new European legislation
risked devastating the "agency jobs" sector - visions of IR45 again
- on which the UK IT market floats.
But if the news is so good, why did I leave the QEII centre feeling
utterly depressed and why were the other hacks also less than
inspired?
I have pages of notes about the reform of public services and
snappy quotes from Douglas Alexander, the minister for
e-transformation. Perhaps I'm simply missing the torchlight
procession around Parliament Square?
But it was the atmosphere of spin that really rankled. The Q&A
session with the No10 spokesperson - I'm not allowed to use his
name - was cut abruptly short and the next Q&A session with
Patricia Hewitt and friends was abruptly cancelled.
This left many in the audience with the distinct feeling that
questions were not to be encouraged. Our pre-ordained role was to
listen politely, applaud on demand and come away from the summit
suitably impressed by both the gloss and the apparent progress made
to date.
There was one point I really wanted to raise and, as I wasn't able
to, I'll raise it here.
The prime minister has announced that all schools will have 2Mb
broadband connections by 2006, which is undeniably good news. But
any recent copy of the
Times Educational Supplement will
tell you that schools, and particularly primary schools, need
rather more than a snowstorm of PCs, new software and a broadband
connection.
Schools are just as desperate for skilled staff that can look after
all the expensive ICT and manage the interoperability challenge
being thrown at them by Downing Street.
Even if they can find the staff, what happens 18 months later when
the PCs start to wear out or the cost of software licences starts
to bite in schools that are hard pressed to provide
textbooks?
Until we can train a new generation of teachers skilled in ICT -
and I write as one who has left teaching technology in schools for
technology in the private sector - we must find ways to plug the
skills gap.
I have a suggestion for Tony Blair. With so many universities now
running computing and computer science courses, why not consider
offering undergraduate students academic credit for helping local
schools manage their IT? In Kuwait, for example, computer science
students can receive 20% credit on their courses if they qualify as
Cisco engineers. Perhaps we can learn from this?
I'm all in favour of a big picture view of tomorrow's economy,
fired by the white heat of certainty in the promise of technology,
but some of the more basic questions are not being given the
attention they deserve, such as who is going to manage all this new
technology when it arrives in my daughter's primary school?
What's your view? How will the knowledge economy progress
beyond a dream?
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Setting the world to rights with the collected
thoughts and opinions of the futurist writer, broadcaster and
Computer Weekly columnist Simon Moores.