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 The EBCI claims its certificate in e-literacy will open up the information society to everyone by providing all the skills and knowledge people need to be a fully participant citizen of the information society.
The EBCI does not offer the courses directly but partners with training companies around the country to teach the courses. The company has already signed up partners to offer courses in over 30 locations in Northern Ireland and the Republic, including the Midlands-based IT training company Techstore, the Whitehall College of Further Education, the Institute of Technology in Tralee, the Pitman Institute in Galway, Ballyfermot Institute of Technology and Foster College in Belfast.
The first of the EBCI partners, Techstore, was launched with the Minister for Public Enterprise, Mary O'Rourke, last week. Techstore is to offer the e-cert courses in Athlone and Maynooth.
The course offers an introduction to e-mail and browsing as well as Internet applications like on-line shopping and on-line banking.
Chris Nel of the EBCI said the course's units on privacy and virus prevention would have significant benefits for Irish business by reducing inappropriate use of e-mail and the Internet through ignorance.
"This course is absolutely necessary," Nel said. "There is no national training programme even though there are e-government Web sites and services. You need to show people how to use the Internet and hold their hand, not just market at them.
"Digital literacy is important from an Irish economic perspective. Ireland needs to remain attractive in the global marketplace and it has to compete with the Scandinavian countries leading the world information society."
The entire e-cert course will cost IEP495 but the three individual units may be taken separately at a cost of between IEP150 and IEP195.
Traditionally Europe and individual member state governments have given strong support for computer learning initiatives. The European Computer Drivers' Licence (ECDL) was launched last year to provide a recognised training certificate for office-based applications, and the European Commission recently stated that "digital literacy is now an essential qualification criterion for almost every job".
CORRECTION to this story.
More information is at http://www.ebcinstitute.com/.
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