Can Skills be Transferable?

Abstract

When real practical problems need to be solved by people in a particular social and economic context, the technology has no more than an instrumental function. Technology itself is politically, socially, and economically neutral but is political in its use, reflecting and possibly strengthening the value system and the economic and political interests of those who control it. This has implications for concepts entailed in the idea of transferring skills through its use. The preconditions for the transfer of skills are the motivation of the recipient, shared practical context, some common language between those imparting and receiving skills. There are severe limitations as to how far the computer can satisfy these conditions. The issue of the transfer of skills should be of central importance in any political programme. For what future are people to be trained? What skills are to be transferred, and to whom? Who is involved in preparing a solution to perhaps the central problem of our era and who is left to form part of the problem?