ABSTRACT
Introduction For the last 20 years the identity and sovereignty of the nation state has been brought into question by the globalization of the economy. Individual countries have been struggling to maintain their traditional decision-making power and authority against the mobilization of global financial markets and the increasing reach of the multinational corporations (Schiller 1986). The collapse of national barriers to trade, production and service delivery have been significantly advanced by the revolution in information technologies which has led to an exponential increase in global information flows (Kenway 1996). Against this background, governments around the world are developing policy initiatives aimed at improving the quality of their human resources in an attempt to win a competitive advantage in the new competition (Brown and Lauder 2000). In this way, a working familiarity with information technologies has become a key feature of both individual ‘employability’ and international competitiveness; thus prompting nation states to invest in information technologies as a way of delivering and extending education and training, whilst also building and developing nation-wide ‘information infrastructures’.
