e-learning within three years - 06/2001

Large companies expect the majority of IT training to be via e-Learning by 2004, according to a survey by Happy Computers.

Very little online learning is happening currently. More than 77% of companies questioned had done little or no online training in IT. Even amongst large companies (those employing more than 600 people) 70% were doing less than 10% of their training online.

99% of respondents expected a sharp rise in the proportion of training carried out online. Amongst all companies questioned, 39% of respondents expected to be doing the majority of their training online by 2004. This rose to 51% in large companies.

ìIt is early days yet for most companiesî, explained Henry Stewart, chief executive of Happy Computers. ìHowever there are some dramatic changes. One telecommunications company believed that more than 50% of its training was already online, having made all its classroom trainers redundant.î

However few companies expect to go that far. Most expect a mix of classroom and online to be used to meet their peopleís needs. Only 7% of respondents believed that more than 90% of learning will be online by 2004. This ties in with Elliott Maisieís findings in the States that ëblended learningí is the preferred solution.

Happy Computers is perfectly placed to take advantage of these changes. As well as its award-winning classroom training, it has developed its own comprehensive range of e-Learning called Learnfish - using a unique question-based approach.

These results came from questioning more than 500 HR professionals who visited the HRD show in March.