Unemployment is a critical problem in Australia and it is information technology which is an often unacknowledged agent in its inexorable rise. My ambivalence arises from my concomitant admiration of the technological processes at work and my fear for the future, the unemployed generations, and the social consequences of a 'have' and 'have not' society. It does, I believe, have nothing to do with the flawed premises on which the 'vocationalistion' or 'convergence' of industry and education rests. It is not a legitimisation of the underlying principle and its inherent acceptance of blame. Corporate Australia and information technology are culpable.
Education is the scapegoat.
I fervently believe that technology is a social construct, that it is not preternaturally determined to shape or change society, and that pro-active measures should be taken to stem the tide of unemployment created by technology. Education is part of the process of restoration, but educating someone to participate in a system which reflects the past rather than the future is futile. Technology should not be allowed to determine the shape of the future, nor should economic rationalism, nor sentimental archaism. The present does not belong to the past, it belongs to the future. Australian Society for Educational Technology.