New Skills Agenda for Europe recognizes Digital Skills as basic skills

On the 10th of June the European Commission launched the New Skills Agenda for Europe!
The strategy aims at making better use of the skills that are available; equip people with the new skills that are needed – to help them find quality jobs and improve their life chances, by ensuring a strong coordination between Members States, social partners, the industry and other stakeholders.

With technology changing almost every aspect of our lives, to have the right skills is essential in the digital age.

In the future, 90% of all jobs will need some sort of digital skills. Nevertheless, the number of ICT graduates fell by 13% between 2006 and 2013, while currently, 37% of the EU workforce has low digital skills, or none at all.

Today and in the years to come, digital skills are a basic requirement to get ahead in society as well as in the modern workplace. It is not just about reading and writing any more.

In this context the Commission proposes 10 actions to be taken forward over the next two years. A number are announced with the adoption of the new Skills Agenda for Europe on 10 June 2016:

  • A Skills Guarantee to help low-skilled adults acquire a minimum level of literacy, numeracy and digital skills and progress towards an upper secondary qualification.
  • A review of the European Qualifications Framework and the related annexes for a better understanding of qualifications and to make better use of all available skills in the European labour market.
  • The ‘Digital Skills and Jobs Coalition’ to support co-operation among education, employment and industry stakeholders.
  • The ‘Blueprint for Sectoral Cooperation on Skills’ to improve skills intelligence and address skills shortages in specific economic sectors.

Other actions will be launched later in 2016 and in 2017:

  • A ‘Skills Profile Tool Kit for Third Country Nationals’ to support early identification and profiling of skills and qualifications of asylum seekers, refugees and other migrants.
  • A revision of the Europass Framework, offering people better and easier-to-use tools to present their skills and get useful real-time information on skills needs and trends which can help with career and learning choices.
  • Making Vocational Education and Training (VET) a first choice by enhancing opportunities for VET learners to undertake a work based learning experience and promoting greater visibility of good labour market outcomes of VET.
  • A review of the Recommendation on Key Competences to help more people acquire the core set of skills necessary to work and live in the 21st century with a special focus on promoting entrepreneurial and innovation-oriented mind-sets and skills.

Read more about the new #EUSkillsAgenda here:

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