Most public and private policymakers in education and trainingare the first to be informed and made aware of the important role they can play in shaping the new "market" of learning technologies. Both governments and private business in Switzerland would do well to look at developments in other OECD countries, while respecting the specificities of a multilingual, multicultural country like Switzerland.
Aside from the key issues of insuring fair access to all learners as well as that of respecting basic copyright legislations for learning technology products, three areas should be particularly addressed by policymakers:
1. Many fundamental research and development areas related to learning technologies are underdeveloped and in dear need of receiving more political support, if not resources. A focused research agenda could be implemented, based on existing analyses. If one believes in the role of research in monitoring effective and efficient innovation, R&D could become an important trigger for concerted action in the development of transnational multimedia markets for education and training.
2.
Critical market masses are hard to achieve in a small country like Switzerland, further handicapped by its federal system and its multilingual and multicultural entities. Policymaking could therefore be given enhanced responsibilities for joining public and private productive sources and promoting sustainable joint ventures across borders.Another crucial task awaits policymakers: creating a marketable reward system for adult learners having acquired new skills and competencies with learning technologies. Policymakers could well envisage going beyond questions of certification of learning by promoting incentives for companies, both large and small, to recognize knowledge acquired in-house or in other "non-formal" learning settings. If we speak of the importance of developing new corporate cultures, it should be understood that learners' autonomy and collaborative working are two sides of the same coin for the lifelong preparation of the workforce, both in public and private enterprise.