Digital education: Transforming challenges into opportunities
Digital skills already are and will be even more crucial in the workplace. According to an Oxford study, 30 % of today’s jobs in Europe will disappear in the next 25 years. Education plays a key role in tackling these challenges and in transforming them into opportunities. That is why, Members of the European Parliament have called today on the European Commission to develop an EU wide strategy for education in digital skills.
Rapporteur MEP Yana Toom commented:
“Our children and grandchildren will find themselves in the epicentre of this revolution. Having or not having digital skills will become the basis for a new social divide in the near future. We are facing big challenges which our education system is not ready for. It is crucial we ensured that everyone profits from technological developments. Not least because it will also bring up new opportunities for economic growth. Education is the best way forward.”
“This is not only about the labour market: technology has become a part of our daily lives. Banking, paying taxes, and even health care becomes digital. Especially our social and political lives develop increasingly online and with it, the way we consume information and opinions. Media literacy, etiquette online, cyber hygiene, and the protection of personal information — all this requires skills.”
Toom stresses the importance of teachers in these changing processes:
“In Europe, there is no set of professional requirements for an information technology teacher. And the extent to which teachers use technology in class differs immensely among member states. Teachers need to be properly trained and assisted. But since they are already under increasing work pressure, this should not come in as an extra workload. Moreover, it is important we set common goals in order to reach a certain European level of digital skills. Therefore, the report calls furthermore for the creation of an assessment procedure, based for example on the PISA model.”
More info: birte.grages@europarl.europa.eu
