Planning for the Hybrid world

The House of Lords report, ‘Beyond Digital: Planning for a Hybrid World’ is a fascinating look to a future that has accelerated more rapidly than any could have imagined. To a future, which “as a result of the pandemic...is here now”.

The Lords report, calls for a ‘hybrid strategy’ to plan for an approach to an online and offline world, digital inequalities, to potential future uses of technology and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the use of digital technology across society in health, education and our work lives. Calling for more comprehensive data, the Lords highlighted insufficient evidence about the experiences of women, and that there was a striking gap in research on the experiences of Black and Asian communities. Calling for better use of research funds and more co-ordination, the Committee said:” These communities have been disproportionately affected by COVID-19, and we cannot allow people to be further marginalised because policies and interventions designed to prepare for the hybrid world have not been developed to meet their needs.”

‘Hybrid’ the report describes as “an increasingly blurred mix of online and offline aspects of life.”

In a section on education, the Lords report, highlights that; ‘ the abrupt move to home schooling has had a detrimental impact on the education of children and young people who lack digital access, adequate digital devices and a quiet space to work at home.’ Which ‘will lead to an ever-widening inequality between them and their more advantaged peers.’

The Committee also recognised that; ‘Our increasing reliance on digital technology has only underlined the importance of protecting those physical spaces in communities which provide people with opportunities to meet face-to-face and provide digital infrastructure for communities.

Neighbourhoods need to have spaces for social interaction, where people can go about their daily activities in proximity to each other; the modern equivalent of the old ‘town square’.

“Unless and until all children have access to the internet, and the skills they need to make use of digital technology, the Government cannot consider itself prepared for the hybrid world.”

House of Lords Report

And as Baroness Lane-Fox of Soho , said in a speech in the Lords in 2017: “... if a 700-year-old institution can see the value of digital understanding, I have no doubt the rest of the British public can too. “

Planning for the Future

The Government should work with local authorities and schools to fund a specific support programme to ensure that all children have an adequate internet connection and suitable digital devices to work effectively online from home.

Provide funding to ensure that teachers and schools can make the most of the benefits that an increasing role for online learning offers.

The Government should ensure that the curriculum reflects the increasing need for digital skills and provides all children and young people with the skills needed for our hybrid world.

In common with the other areas of life considered in this report, it will be important that those who have benefitted from the rapid shift to online - in this case, young disabled people in particular - do not find the option for more flexible, digital study withdrawn once schools are able to fully reopen.

Source:

‘Beyond Digital: Planning for a Hybrid World’