Interview on policies for the use of ICT for learning in SMES with Barry Nyhan, Cedefop.

Name: Barry Nyhan

What is your job title?
Researcher in European vocational education and training

What are your overall responsibilities?

I am responsible for the development of the Cedefop Research Arena (Cedra). Cedra, established in 2000, supports research cooperation in the fields of vocational education and training (VET) and human resource development (HRD). It facilitates communication and contributes to community building among European researchers. The concept of partnerships and networks for sharing resources and developing knowledge is central to Cedra. Cedra carries out its activities in close collaboration with its partners.

Cedra has three strands:

1. Sharing research information via the 'European Research Overview' (ERO)
2. Promoting knowledge development mainly dealing with the theme 'work-related learning'
3. Fostering new research methodologies for the knowledge society

What are your responsibilities in relation to ICT and SMEs?

Barry Nyhan was responsible for the Cedefop ICT and SME project, a short research project undertaken in five European countries, which resulted in the publication of ‘E-learning in Small and Medium Enterprises in Europe: the challenge for policies and practice’.

He is a specialist in research into the learning organisation and the learning region, having published many papers and books in this field. Much of this research involves looking at learning in Small and Medium Enterprises.

What measures is your agency taking with regard to ICT and SMEs?

Cedefop is responsible for research and development activities in vocational education and training. This work includes projects on:

The development of e-skills in SMEs including the development of a typology of e-skills
Skills and qualifications for SMEs in the international market
Research into learning organisations
Research into the learning region

What measures is your agency / organisation taking with regard to e-learning?

Cedefop has taken a considerable number of initiatives with regard to e-learning. These include developing services and activities, such as opportunities in e-learning, surveys, general information, a news centre, and daily issues in electronic learning.

What do you think are the main barriers to the use of ICT technologies in SMEs?

The main barrier is a lack of understanding as to how to accommodate e-learning to SMEs – and indeed to enterprise in general. People have too optimistic a view of e-learning as a whole – it is sold as if going to solve all problems and then when it does not work it is never tried again. E-learning is seen as a replacement for more traditional learning media – even in cases where no training is going on at all.

How can these barriers be overcome?

SMEs need tailor made solutions but lack know-how in training. Training is seen as a formal thing. SMEs are not exploiting opportunities for learning as a whole and e-learning is at the bottom of the list of issues because it is seen as a bit more complex. SMEs need a fundamental understanding of learning and how e-learning fits into learning programmes.

In a good SME – in whatever organisational sector – if it is performing well and workers have enough autonomy – people will be learning. This requires:

Good communication
Good organisation
Good common collective problem solving
Good relations between customers and producers
Good relations between managers and workers.

If an SME has these then you have learning – any kind of learning. It requires an environment which will stimulate people to think. E-learning has to fit into that – to assist communication, problems solving, making available new information on customers, products, technology, solutions and support all those things. The problem is that organisations that do not have these things think elearning is a waste of time – people will be cynical if they are not in an environment which supports learning.

SMEs do not see the necessity for training except where it arises out of a felt need. Until they have awareness of a need to learn something new you do not have conditions for learning. We cannot force people to learn – it will at best only be partially effective. Learning must be a democratic dialogue between people.

What policies can help this process?

In policy terms let a thousand flowers bloom – as economically as possible and without incurring extra expense. The issue is not one of just investment on training but of creating conditions for people with different experiences and qualification levels to share practical knowledge and experiences with each other. Policy should promote more trust in people – in developing their confidence in their own resources to learn and solve problems for themselves. We need to see people as resourceful. We should start from a proficiency not deficiency model of development. This can only be manifested in relations between management and workers. Policy has to look at work life and how people organise work and the quality of working life. Management and workers should be reviewing progress in a collaborative way. We need actions programmes to make people aware of these things – to link quality, productivity, the knowledge society and learning.

Programmes and development should build on tacit, localised and situated knowledge to develop what is called a ‘work conducive learning environments’. This is not to be confused as a softly-softly approach – it has to be in the ambit of honest talking, reviewing and evaluating the effectiveness of an SME.

Work life one of most controlled areas of society – very different from family life even though in the family people are making huge decisions without supervision and are also making critical and difficult economic decisions. The whole attitude to work is a controlling top down approach and e-learning is still seen as a top down approach – particularly with assessment packages and feedback packages etc. This is OK for those who are well educated and can manage exams.

What policies are being promoted at the moment?

There is lots of talk from European agencies but they do not know how learning takes place within how SMEs. The European Commission Directorate Generals focusing on learning in SMEs are too much focussed on formal learning. They do not really value learning that takes place outside a classroom context or a the very controlled context of a formal learning programme – it is not within their culture and language even when they try to introduce ‘innovations’ like problem based learning. They are still predominantly concerned with capturing outcomes and packaging learning in the controlled environment that they are at home with. That has become more prominent now that vocational training is under the control of education ministries in the Member States comprised of middle ranking civil servants most of whom have never even organised a formal learning experience not to mind having an understanding of informal learning experiences.

The need for a coherent concept of lifelong learning or life-wide learning calls for the linking of all sorts of different factors together – health, the lack of stress, the impact of technology and technological change, competitiveness, change management, HRD policies, work-life balance - all these kinds of things are the ingredients of a learning society. If we are only dealing with educational institutions we will always be trying to redefine and control or colonise (although maybe that is too hard a word) the things that have escaped from control and bring them back in. It is the opposite to distilling – it is like boiling out the goodness of the food – the vitamins from the vegetables.

Who do you think should be responsible for helping SMEs introduce e-learning?

Support can come from regional networks, from other SMEs, through a dialogue with researchers, from technical advisers or business advisers. The objective of government intervention should to set the ball rolling and to promote dialogue. The concept of a learning society or learning organisation is a non-starter without dialogue at every level. Policy role is to stimulate and support local networking.

We need to get people talking openly and confront each other. There are examples of this going on. There is an interesting case in Sweden. The lowest level of university participation is in a region called Gnosjo – but it has the highest productivity and the lowest unemployment built on a strategy of competitive-cooperation. (For more on this see Gustavsen and Ennals publications on Development Coalitions).

Who do you think should be responsible for financing e-learning. Should there be public subsidies and if so, who should it be paid to?

Public financing requires long-term thinking going form national and regional perspectives but the quality of programmes or initiatives is more important than the funding. Bad funding can do more harm than good – should be seen to complement and stimulate development. It should only cover a small percentage of overall investment – say 20 per cent – and companies should allocate resources and time in lieu of money.

Do you think there should be legislation to improve access to continuing / further training for SME employees. If so what sort of legislation?

Legislation should focus on laying down minimal conditions – it should tie in with other rules on working conditions enforced by law. Training is built into that by its very nature – people should have induction into health and safety and should be trained to work with dangerous machinery. It has to be a minimal level. For training itself – when you go beyond those levels - there are different practices in different countries in Europe – on the whole I think programmes are better than laws – say an innovation programme in every region as distinct form forcing companies to do a set number of hours of training.

There are different agendas to fulfil with regard to learning in SMEs – one is for the productive life of company as a whole and this has to be done internally – including for example a good platform / arena for exchanging information and feedback between employees.

On the other hand if individuals want to improve their own qualifications then of course people should have the right and support to do so. This could be through going to a course in community or participating in an e-learning or distance learning course – that is one way of addressing that need. But there is a limit to what an SME can do in these cases, so learning for the effective production of the company as a whole, with the fallout of benefits for individuals, must be seen as the main activity

If you could implement one policy to assist SMEs with technology what would it be?

The sharing of experiences and knowledge at a regional level– creating networks relating to experiences of sharing - what did they did right and what they did wrong, sharing feedback and learning – what works – how do make things work. It is what I call natural learning. This has got to be inspired by a community of mutual sharing. A meeting I was in Denmark it was pointed out that local economic development projects and networks with vested interests in their own community work best. Sharing and learning cannot be forced – that is why I worry about the legislative approach.