E-Learning and Public Value

Taking as its starting point the Grigg and Mager’s paper “Public value and Learning and Skills” (2005), the present paper seeks to explore the articulation of the concept of public value in the context of post compulsory education in the United Kingdom. Where Grigg and Mager and other authors focus on the provider’s role in developing public value through its activities, this paper looks at alternative articulations of the concept of public value to develop an outline of the contribution learners can make to public value through the media of ICT and e-learning. Drawing on previous work such as that of Garnett and O’Bierne (2005) and the perspectives of constructionist approaches in poverty and community studies, the potential role of ICT and e-learning in helping learners to create and record public value is outlined. A short outline of the development of this work, beyond this paper, is given.