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Standards in IT learning and skills fall short, says survey

A new survey from IT Skills Research and the organisers of Learning Technologies 2007 suggests that many of the learning industry's standards, in IT training, certification, technology and methods, are failing to attract support from learning buyers.

The research was carried out during January and February 2007 with learning buyers from 200 UK organisations.

According to the Learning and Development Buyers Survey:

• The IT industry is seriously lagging behind in the training and development of its own staff compared to other industry sectors
• Certification is not strategic in many organisations
• Competency frameworks are being developed in-house, if used at all
• The percentage of training budgets spent on e-learning and other technology-based methods has been static for five years

Don Taylor, conference chairperson of the Learning Technologies Conference, said: "It is essential that the learning industry really gets to grips with its standards. Wider adoption of standards in learning will make learning more affordable and open to many more people in business and throughout their careers, yet it's clear from this research that business is not buying into the existing standards, such as in certification, training delivery and competency frameworks. There's a lot of reinventing of the wheel going on."

"It's a misconception that learning providers are all delivering totally unique services, particularly within training delivery where learning providers should be able to include greater levels of best practice. Greater use of best practice would give learning buyers greater confidence to invest in standards."

The research considered buying responsibilities, internal training vs externally sourced training, training budgets, outsourcing and managed services, sources of information for training purchases, learning media, IT training subjects, certification intentions, competency model selections, the use of technologies in learning and e-learning development methods.

The complete research report is available to IT Skills Research members and Learning Technologies 2007 conference delegates.

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Learning Technologies 2007

IT Skills Research

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