Friday, December 07, 2012

Learning: The 21st Century Growth Industry

It seems to me that education might be the new 21st century growth industry. This will be about everything from on-demand apps, community learning circles at the local library through to higher university degrees online.

The ACT Library sent me a survey about community learning. As the library points out  "Learning is not limited to formal education or study". The library provides a good venue for such less formal learning.

The President of the ACS in a recent newspaper column pointed out the value of education via the Internet.  The ACS President was specifically referring to MOOCS (Massive Online Open Courses).

Sylvia Pennington, writing in The Age newspaper reported some concern from academics about industry sponsored courses ("This lecture proudly brought to you by ...",

The ACS itself runs more bespoke courses online as a finishing school for computer professionals to teach them about management (I run the Green ICT course for the program).


2 comments:

Chris Johnson said...

There is support in a recent report giving the comparative value of international education as a dollar valued export rated against other export categories (wool wheat iron and coal etc.) for each Australian state and territory:
Education as an Export for Australia 2011/2012
report for SPRE by Alan Olsen (SPRE is an independent education research consultancy).

Tom Worthington said...

Chris Johnson said December 11, 2012 10:26 AM:

>... recent report ... Education as an Export for Australia 2011/2012 ...

Thanks, report at: http://www.spre.com.au/download/ExportsAustraliaStates201112.pdf