National Office for the Information Economy (NOIE) chief executive John Rimmer told ZDNet Australia the ageing population means that the 15 percent of young adults that don't have digital skills could pose a problem for Australia as labour market participation rates fall.
"One of the key concerns for government at the moment is labour market participation rates -- the aging population means you can't afford to have any young people on the scrap heap," he said in an interview held after his presentation at the ICT Outlook Forum yesterday.
"As we move to very high proportions of the population having access to the Internet -- it's now 75 per cent of adults and 85 per cent of young adults -- there's still this 15 per cent of young adults who don't have access to the new digital tools and the new digital skills."
The digital divide is starting to make the education sector feel uneasy as well, Rimmer says. "Ensuring that digital skills are available to the bulk of the population, including those kids who are leaving school early... is a major issue for our education colleagues as well," he said. "There's a lot of work going on to work out how to ensure that no one leaves formal education and training without having basic digital literacy."
Other items on NOIE's agenda include implementing the national broadband strategy and improving e-government while avoiding the hype. "Well we're pretty careful not to be advocating a new era of internet mania about e-government. It's going to focus on what are real applications that make life better for people," Rimmer said.
By introducing simple innovations, Rimmer says the savings in time, productivity and budgets are significant.
"The simple ability to be able to get information online without having to make a trip to a government office has a big payback," he said. "Similarly in the convenience end -- [there's] the notion of integrated transactions... you can actually interact with government and do all three components of a transaction at once in a single session rather than having to go to three different offices and get the pieces of paper to take to the next office -- it's a major improvement."
A large proportion of traffic to basic government Web sites targeted at small businesses comes in after hours and on weekends, which shows that people are appreciating the convenience of accessing government information over the Web, Rimmer says.
As an educator to one of the major groups that is on the wrong side of the divide, i find all the chest beating and bleeting to be pardoxicle.
Our institutions that are responsible for the marginalised, low socio-ecconomic groups that are disadvantaged, are the very institutions starved for funds. When one of the richest, well funded private schools can get $10,000 for a new front gate, and has already got an undercover rifle range, i cannot see how we can believe the government is taking the digital divide seriously. Particularly when just down the road, a public school is struggling for every-day operating funds!
I see the concern as a beatup and a smoke screen. It is sad to realise that most of the students at these wealth starved schools are the very people that make up the 15% with no e-connections. These students in general do not get the opportunity during their high school attendance to get near a PC. Until there is a more equatable share, based on need and opportunity (school and home) these chest beaters should stop talking and start doing.
Or just admit that the issue is a class thing and they really do not have any intention of funding or fixing it as they want the status quo to remain.