Personal access

At present, there are many formal and nonformal education and training programs offered on more flexible basis to meet the needs of adult learners, particularly of women. They include a broad range: literacy and ESL programs offered by community based agencies, skill and interest courses offered by colleges and school boards, workplace based training offered by employers, open and flexible learning programs that enable learners to "drop in" on their own time and work with resource materials, and distance education programs that provide courses or complete programs to learners who study independently and/ or in groups. The current programs provide a benchmark for determining to what extent new technologies improve accessibility.

From the learner's perspective, factors that affect access to learning opportunities emerge from the following series of questions:

• What learning do I want to pursue?
  
  
• Is it available in my community, at a time and place that make it possible for me to participate?
  
  
• Is it available to me by distance education, in a format that makes it possible for me to use?
  
  
• Can I afford it?
  
  
• Do I have the time to do this? If there are competing demands of family or work, will be able to negotiate sufficient time?
  
  
• Are there other factors, such as my previous education, or language, that affect my eligibility or ability to participate?
  
  
• Will the learning program be set up in such a way that it meets my needs as a learner?

While learning technologies, old and new, can help with some personal access issues, such as the need to study on a flexible schedule, they cannot necessarily help with others, such as limited finances or insufficient time to study. Lack of confidence or an unsupportive family are barriers to learning that need to be addressed with the help of human support, rather than new learning technologies.

In some situations, newer learning technologies can make personal access more complicated. Two examples follow.

Access to systems and technologies

As mentioned earlier, access to single telephone lines and reliable electrical power is not necessarily a given for a significant number of Canadian households. These are the most basic requirements for communication. Access to computers cannot be assumed. In many locations, if computers are available in public facilities, they may not have the systems needed for communication or for Internet access. Computers are a costly item, and tend to be more available in wealthier households. ¹⁸ (See the background data below.)

Language issues

Language is a major consideration as soon as communication over the Internet is required, English is the dominant language of the Internet and of many communication systems, such as e-mail: other languages do not travel well on the Information Highway. One report prepared for IHAC notes that text based messaging and other software do not readily accommodate languages other than English, and that written material in aboriginal languages cannot be readily exchanged over electronic networks, since their scripts cannot be written in digital code used by most computers and networks.¹⁹

Even Canada's official language, French, is not well supported on the Information Highway. The final report of IHAC comments that "the availability of French language materials, navigational tools and compatible standards for their distribution is very limited and must be encouraged."²⁰