Education and Skills

See HERE

Workshop, Brussels, November 8, 2018 (Preliminary programme see below)                         

Multiple studies performed during 2017 and monitored by the Digital Enlightenment Forum show clearly that the rapid transformations taking place in the new digital ecosystem have a strong and measurable collateral effect on the job market demand and the difficulty of existing educational systems to keep up with this demand.

As Commissioner for Digital Economy and Society Mariya Gabriel  pointed out at the Digital Skills and Jobs Coalition conference last December digital skills creation constitutes, deservedly, a key pillar of the Digital Europe strategy:

“Europe is experiencing a shortage in ICT specialists with at least 350,000 vacancies today. Furthermore, 40% of enterprises trying to recruit ICT specialists report difficulties in getting qualified people. I believe that nowadays digital skills are as important as knowing how to read, write and do math. They are basic skills that everyone should have. This is part of a broader discussion on the "future of work", and how new technologies are changing the labor markets and lead to hard questions and uncertainties for all of us.”

In this same “future of work” context, the OECD Report “The Future of Work and Skills” recognizes three ongoing megatrends that will significantly alter the nature of work in the industrialised world: globalization, technological progress and demographic change. These three trends cannot be seen separate from each other and will together lead to significant societal and cultural changes. In particular, these trends will strongly affect the quantity and quality of available jobs and how and by whom they will carried out. We can observe in industry an already all-permeating use of Big Data and automation driven by Data Analytics resulting in an accelerating development of Artificial Intelligence and Robotics. The enormous potential of this for the EC in a true digital single market is documented in COM(2016)180).

At the same time, in this so-called Fourth Industrial Revolution, digital technologies are leading to the emergence of disruptive business models, challenging traditional hierarchies and creating new commercial value systems. An extensive...

In this one-day workshop we expect participants to be actively engaged in addressing the challenge of education and skills provision for the new employment ecosystem that emerges through the deployment of Artificial Intelligence, Robotics and related digital technologies.

Participants will come from policy, educational institutions and industry and be ready and open for multi-disciplinary debate.

Speakers will present their views on the future of jobs and skills, they will give insights in the innovations happening in the field and existing and/or under development e-learning and “up-training” tools will be showcased.

We strive to enable participants to interact and take new ideas back with them to work out in their own environments or in future partnerships and collaborations.

Final results aim at recommendations for pertinent EU and Member State policy, including for the new 2021-2028 EU Framework Programme.

See below on the change of date. We will soon announce a new date

Multiple studies performed during 2017 and monitored by the Digital Enlightenment Forum show clearly that the rapid transformations taking place in the new digital ecosystem have a strong and measurable collateral effect on the job market demand and the difficulty of existing educational systems to supply it with suitably skilled human resources. See for more details attachment below.

Earlier Digital Enlightenment debates have recommended an approach be developed to  combine flexible and hybrid learning mini- courses, self-regulated learning, mentoring and coaching, all aimed at clearly measurable acquisition of skills that are readily recognizable by potential employers.

A palette of new-generation e-learning tools, existing or to be developed, will need to be effectively integrated into such approach.

We believe that it is now timely to take up the challenge and bring together knowledgeable people who can collectively and via the trademark DigEnlight interaction shed as much light as possible on how fast and vast this education vs employment disruption is and provide insights as well as concrete recommendations.

 To this end Digital Enlightenment Forum will contribute by organising a one-day workshop on May, 31 2018 in Brussels under the title: “Skills for Jobs in the Digital Era”.

We expect participants to be actively engaged in addressing the challenge of education and skills provision for the new employment ecosystem. They will come from policy, educational institutions and industry and be ready and open for multi-disciplinary debate.

Existing and/or under development e-learning and “up-training” tools will be showcased.

The workshop aims at producing recommendations for pertinent EU policy, including for the new 2021-2028 Research Framework Programme. It also strives to enable participants to interact and take new ideas back with them to work out in their own environments or in future partnerships and collaborations.

 The draft programme is:

            Opening Policy Keynote

  Followed by three panel discussions:

1. New Jobs, New Skills: Status and Prospects
2. Up- and re-skilling – Innovative Approaches
3. New Generation e-Learning Tools for Career Development – Trials and Showcases

More details can be found in the documents given below.

For free registration use the right hand column form or send an email to info@digitalenlightenment.org...

Digital technologies are affecting the emergence of disruptive business models, challenging traditional hierarchies and creating new commercial value systems as illustrated e.g. by the all-permeating use of data analytics (6)

It is already amply documented (3) that there are already hundreds of thousands of ICT related job vacancies in Europe and the US across all industry sectors due to lack of suitable digital skills among the young.

The number of these vacancies is growing as our traditional educational institutions struggle against deeply entrenched entropic resistance to rapid change which, in turn, results in a growing skills mismatch (4).

In the context of the overall “digital disruption” a drastic re-think of both formal and informal education and skill acquisition programs is taking place at all levels both in Europe, the US and elsewhere to address the issue of digital education and skills.

Furthermore, Digital Enlightenment Forum (1) debates and reports lead to the conclusion that the sought after “digital literacy” cannot and must not be limited to the necessary prerequisites of the digital equivalent of “reading, writing and arithmetic” but extend to the acquisition of a certain degree of “professionalism”, including:

• Functional skills (e.g. in data analytics or mobile apps)
• Critical thinking and selection skills
• Effective communication and collaboration skills

There are already budgeted new EU initiatives to address this via the creation of Skills Hubs, usually within an Innovation Hub with a broader scope.

In a number of EU regions, where the skills mismatch is worse than the average in the EU (see Eurostat) it further aggravates the tragic youth unemployment situation (e.g. Greece, Spain).

There are in such regions large numbers of young (many with university degrees in STEMS) who are unemployed. At the same time there is a growing demand by healthy and growing enterprises in the digital domain and increasingly, in other business sectors ready to hire candidates possessing suitable ICT skills that they need.

This is where the idea and ensuing proposal for a Skills Hub comes in.

Unlike most other EU and US related initiatives it is not proposed to set up a full Innovation Hub (2) but rather just one of the key components of such an Innovation Hub, a Skills Hub which enables young people to acquire, in a relatively short time, functional digital skills which will make them immediately “hirable” by existing companies.

The approach to be developed will combine mini and “flipped” courses, self- regulated learning, mentoring and aim only at clearly measurable skill acquisition.

...

#TaxBuilds your future! 

TAXUD launched the European Pilot Project on Digital Tax Education for Young Europeans

Brussels, 21 November - New training tools are used for European civic education. Embracing an initiative of the European Parliament, the European Commission’s Taxation and Customs Union Directorate-General - DG TAXUD - launched the project TAXEDU - "Digital Tax Education for young people in Europe" (https://europa.eu/taxedu/). 

TAXEDU is led by SIVECO, a DigEnlight associate member.

The project is meant to improve tax education for European children, teenagers and young adults. Information is conveyed through games, e-learning material and microlearning clips so that European youngsters can learn about tax in its different forms in a fun and engaging way.

See for more information the attachment.