Bridging the digital divide through educational initiatives: Problems and solutions

Being on the wrong side of the digital divide limits the life chances of the socially excluded, who have had neither the wherewithal nor the opportunity to obtain highly paid, skilled positions in IT. Irish policy makers see education as the solution to this problem. However, providing institutional support for the socially disadvantaged who wish to avail of third level education in IT poses significant challenges. This paper describes these problems and explains how they were overcome in implementing an undergraduate university programme called the Diploma in Applied Business Computing. This targeted initiative was an unqualified success in that it achieved its primary objectives-academic and social. However, what made it so was the commitment of concerned stakeholders, from members of the executive steering committee who developed and implemented the course, to the lecturers who delivered it, the companies who supported it, and the students who participated in it.