ABSTRACT

In the information age, flexible learning has become a central feature of national education policies around the globe. In the era of ‘knowledge workers’ and workplace reforms, the importance of flexible approaches to learning cannot be overestimated. The adjustments to the workplace, working in teams, developing flexibility and mobility are all part of the melange of skills, knowledge and attitudes now required at work. Workplace reforms and subsequent demands on the labour force are aspects of powerful discourses that are fuelling the demand for flexible approaches to learning. Flexible learning is itself therefore connected to workplace and economic discourses. From the perspective of many employers, the ultimate value to the organisation of an employee is their ability to apply their knowledge. Productivity in firms depends not only on the aggregate capabilities of individuals, but on the development of effective interaction patterns and team work (Bowman 1995: 69). Hopes that flexible learning will service the new interaction patterns and work teams are held not only at enterprise level, but are increasingly reflected at national and transnational policy levels.