The UK Government needs to reform the current online safety education policy for school children.

Ryan T Williams is a father of two girls and the exited co-founder of one of the UK's most successful social media agencies. He found that, despite us living in an ever-evolving digital age, his girls weren't being taught the skills they needed to not only stay safe online but also utilise the digital spaces to create solid career opportunities for themselves.

In support of the Online Harms Bill, he decided to offer his expertise to support the UK Government to help them look at the way the digital industry is presented in schools and help them develop education opportunities to encourage all school children to stay safe online and thrive in a digital age. 

Recognising that his expertise and the expertise of other groundbreaking industry leaders in the UK could be made available to all UK schools, teachers, parents and their children via a partnership with the government, Ryan offered his expertise to help reform the UK’s online safety and digital skills curriculum. He had hoped he would be met with excitement and action. He expected a government that cared about preparing children for the real online world.

Unfortunately, despite growing concerns for online safety, Ryan’s offer was met with rejection from the Rt Hon Stephen Morgan MP in favour of a policy that was created in 2019 and revised in 2023. The government’s refusal to acknowledge that children are growing up in a digital era that will leave them behind if they don't have the skills to keep up has hugely concerning implications for the future of technology and the economy. Their refusal to support parents and teachers to embrace the possibilities of this digital world is equally as concerning, how are they supposed to keep children safe online if they don’t know how? 

Reforming education in this area and bringing in experts to help create a curriculum that is focused on the real world will help to keep children safe online and ready to thrive in a technology focussed world when they leave school. 

This petition is to lobby the government to implement more effective, expert-empowered education in the digital space instead of opting for the lazy approach of scaremongering and bans. 

The Future For Our Children Is In A Digital Age – Why Won’t the Government Give Them The Skills They Need?

Our children are growing up in a digital age that poses not only threats but also huge opportunities for the next generation to lead us further into the digital age. But our education system is held back by our Government, who are so focused on the politically motivated agenda behind the online harms bill that they forgot to look at the endless possibilities for good that the digital age and online presence present for our children.

As the exited co-founder of KOMI Group, one of the UK’s leading social media agencies and LadBible’s biggest competitor under his leadership, he built a company that thrived in the digital age. He understands social media, online behaviour, and the evolving risks and opportunities of the digital world in ways that outdated government policies simply don’t.

As a father, he was shocked to find how little education is available in the digital skills spaces. Which is why he’s focussed his attention on improving education in this area. He launched the Ryan T Williams Foundation to access grant funding to help offer free digital skills and online safety education in UK schools, not only for children but for parents and teachers, too. Ryan hopes to roll out the talks and workshops he offers to every school in the UK. Recognising that this may take some time, he also launched Ryan T William’s Creator Academy which features courses designed for parents and teachers wanting to learn about online safety, how the various platforms out there work and all the tools they need to embrace the technology available to their children. 

Our Children Are Being Left Behind - The world has changed, but the classroom hasn’t.

Right now, the UK’s online safety and digital skills education is built on outdated policies taught briefly during PSHE classes. In the press and meida, there is a focus on scaremongering serving an agenda that will deliver financial gain through fines.

What Ryan is calling for is a curriculum and education reforms that cover:

• Emerging digital careers in AI, content creation, and cybersecurity that children are not currently being prepared for.
• Basic social media training that furthers career opportunities and offers a better future for online presences.
• Empowerment and education around how to harness the power of online spaces for good. 
• Learn from our home grown industry leaders and use their expertise to shape the future of education.

Has “Education, Education, Education” been forgotten?

The current Prime Minister's predecessor, Tony Blair, once made a historic speech preaching the importance of 'Education, Education, Education.' The current members of the Labour Party have forgotten that, despite the real power education holds.

We’ve seen education change lives before. It helped curb the AIDS epidemic in the ’80s. It reduced underage pregnancies in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Now, education must evolve again—to keep our children safe online and prepare them for the digital jobs of the future.

Teachers need the curriculum updating, resources provided and the opportunity to learn the skills to share them with children.

Parents need education made freely available to them to help them learn the skills they need to help keep their children safe online and be inspired to embrace this digital era.

The digital era is here to stay. It’s part of our everyday lives, from putting a reel of your recent trip on Instagram, following a recipe on TikTok, discovering interior design inspiration on Pinterest, watching an interview on Youtube or Googling that thing you need to know. We need to ensure everyone is given the skills to thrive in this digital era, especially children as they are the next generation of innovators.

The UK Government needs to act now to empower our children education with digital skills to not only keep them safe online, but also thrive in this digital era. 

We’ve all seen the horrendous statistics around the impacts the online world has on children, but that is only a one sided approach. Technology has transformed the world we live in and continues to make it better every day. By banning children from online spaces, we’re banning them from discovering the power for good held in the online world. If that continues, we’re simply robbing them of any future prospects they have. Without digital skills training, there won’t be any more innovations in the UK. We’ll be relying on other countries, who have embraced digital skills, to be tech leaders.

Ryan built a digital empire in an era when social media was still evolving. He, like many industry leading experts, understands the threats, the opportunities, and the future of the online world in ways policymakers simply don’t. He experienced first hand, the transformational power of the education system and went on to discover the transformational power of online spaces.

Yet, when he stepped forward, offering his expertise to reshape the way digital skills and online safety are taught in UK schools, he was dismissed in favour of outdated policies. Instead of jumping at this opportunity to incorporate industry-leading knowledge into our education system and policies, the government doubled down on an outdated curriculum that is already failing our children rather than making a change that will make a huge difference in the impacts that the digital era is having on our children right now.

Banning children from online spaces will simply push them to go behind our backs to access technology that’s already a key feature in most aspects of their lives. Banning them closes down conversations. Without any real skills or understanding of the digital spaces they’re in, plus being forced to access it behind the backs of responsible adults, they’ll be in serious danger of being targeted by the bad side of the online world. Whether we like it or not, technology is here to stay and empowering children with digital skills will make them safer and give them the ability to thrive online.

History has proven that education is key to making real change. The current UK Government need to act fast to turn around the current system and invite real experts, with real world success and knowledge to reform the current system and implement digital skills training that the next generation can use to embrace the digital era and thrive in the online world. 

That’s why we’re calling on the UK government to listen to experts like Ryan T Williams and many other leaders in the digital spaces to redevelop the current offering to students to make real change for the better. Ryan T Williams is calling on the UK Government to take action now and accept the help offered by industry leaders like him to empower the next generation with the skills they need to stay safe and thrive online.

Sign the Petition – Demand A Better Future For Our Children Now.