SKILLS GAP – SOLUTION MAY BE WITH DIGITAL SKILLS ACCELERATOR PROJECT

Much research has been carried out on the digital divide in the labour market, most notably the gap between the demand for employees with high level ICT skills and the low availability. However, in today’s labour market, it is estimated that 90% of ALL jobs require ICT skills (www.idc.com) since rapid innovation in ICT is leading to “the need for digital skills in nearly all jobs where ICT complements existing tasks.” (EC Digital Single Market texts) Nevertheless, 47% of the EU population is not properly digitally skilled and this is even more noticeable in Poland, where 54% of the population have no or low digital skills. (EC Digital Single Market publications). Indeed, Poland ranks last among OECD countries with less than 20% of all workers using office software daily.

For these reasons, the Digital Skills Accelerator (DSA) project aims to put learners in the driving seat of their own skills development. The goal of the project is clear: define the digital skills that should be prioritized by current and future cohorts of HE students, and create a self-directed multi-media learning system that students can access to bolster their skills in specific areas.

In order to achieve this goal, the project intends to:
- Produce a DIGITAL SKILLS REPORT (IO1) identifying the most valuable digital skills required professionally and for civic engagement.
- Create an ONLINE SELF-ASSESSMENT TOOL (IO2) enabling students to identify their digital skills’ profile and map a personalized learning pathway.
- Develop the ESSENTIAL DIGITAL SKILLS TOOLKIT (IO3), an open, online modular training course allowing students to update their skills in the key areas.
- Produce a series of MOTIVATION AND RECRUITMENT VIDEOS (IO4) as an essential component of the recruitment and learning process.
- Rigorously test and optimize the resources before disseminating them widely to ensure strong use among the target groups.

The DSA model is based heavily on the concepts of user based design and so it is only reasonable that the project should integrate as much user participation as possible at all stages, from design to execution to evaluation. It involves HE institutions, VET institutions and wider stakeholders will participate in a digital skills report, teaching staff from HEIs &VET institutions and HE learners will participate in user testing and in video case studies and HE and VET institutions and wider stakeholders will participate in multiplier events. The DSA project will produce the knowledge, resources and social capital (commitment from key actors) to enable the introduction of the Digital Skills and Competences model to our HE and VET institutions, and through them to present and future generations of digital confident citizens.