Brussels asks the 27 for universal access to “inclusive and high-quality” digital education

BRUSSELS, 18 Apr. (EUROPE PRESS) –

The European Commission has asked European governments on Tuesday for defined national strategies to ensure universal access to “inclusive and high-quality” digital education to provide students with the necessary skills to adapt to the new demands of the digital age and correct the gap that still exists in the countries of the European Union.

“We are not moving fast enough, if we want to achieve the agreed objectives we must speed up the pace and be bold,” warned the Commissioner for Innovation and Education, Mariya Gabriel, at a press conference in Brussels to present two proposals for governments to address the “lack of perspective” in the Administration to improve the digital profiles of Europeans and so that the education and training sector has resources to face the difficulties of this transition.

“We have to improve a lot in terms of digital skills and give them the same importance as reading and writing,” warned, in turn, the vice president of the Community Executive responsible for Competition and the Digital Era, Margrethe Vestager.

For Danish politics, efforts must be redoubled to achieve the goal that, by 2030, “at least 80% of adults have at least basic digital skills” and that there are “20 million specialists in the Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), including many more women”.

Brussels points out that Member States still have difficulties in achieving sufficient levels of investment in digital education and training infrastructures, in digital educational equipment and content, in digital training (upgrading skills) of teachers and staff, and in the monitoring and evaluation of digital education and training policies.

For this reason, it advocates having a coherent framework for investment, governance and teacher training for effective and inclusive digital education, for which the community proposal offers guidelines and measures for Member States to apply a perspective that covers from the Administration to the need for a culture of growing innovation and digitization led by education and training staff.

On the other hand, the Community Executive asks governments to promote the teaching of digital skills in a coherent way from an early age at all levels of education and training, for example by setting gradual objectives and interventions aimed at “priority groups or difficult to access” specific.

Thus, the proposal asks the 27 to support the teaching of quality computing in schools, to integrate the development of digital skills for adults and to address the shortage of information technology professionals by adopting inclusive strategies.