Who is responsible for learning new technologies

Lately I've been getting into a fight with a work colleague because we disagree about new technology. We mainly work in the web area with C# .NET and Angular/React. However, one of our customers wants a mobile app and so ReactNative or Flutter would be an option. I've already worked with Flutter in my spare time and found the project very interesting. My colleague thinks that the company needs to send us to workshops or training courses now, so that someone can teach us Flutter. I say we should learn in our free time. How do you see that? Do you have similar conflicts?

Comments

[Nicholas Stimpson]

What's the downside of the company sending you on a training course? You can, and will, still build on that with self-learning.

[Michael]

As a company pov there are two points why I shouldn't send my employees to a course:

1. the course is expensive
2. the employee is not at work -> doesn't generate money