Just ahead of our EPP/CoR Study Visit for Masters Students on "Digital skills for all: Reaching our potential together" coorganised with European Democrat Students, we interview MEP Michał Boni, Chair of the EPP digital expert group:
What are digital skills and why are they so important for the labour market?
The digital skills are the key now for one's better position at the labour market. The economy is changing. More and more economic processes related to the services or to the industry require new skills. If you are selling something via internet - you need to understand the rules and build the relations with clients based on digital opportunities. If you are the worker - most probably you will need shorten skills related to the coding. In the coming years the labour market will change as a reflection of the economic digital game changer - so people should adjust their skills to the new needs.
Do you think that digital skills should be a part of formal education and will this be enough?
Teaching the new, digital skills should be a part of formal education - as the teaching of coding is in some countries, eg. in United Kingdom. We should not lose time. As many dimensions of the labour market needs related to the digital revolution are changing very fast, decisions supporting a change of the educational curricula are key and required in a relatively short time. There is no possibility to support people's new digital skills development without administrative decisions related to the formal/obligatory education. But, of course we should be open to all forms of improving workforce's skills - as individual opportunities, using new technologies and the internet, and also MOOC's models.
Can you share a best practice that has been presented to the Expert Group and which could provide inspiration for local and regional authorities to better promote and support digital learning projects?
I would like to share with the Expert Group some experiences and results of concrete projects. Firstly, there are some schools in Poland, which have participated in the pilot programme "The Digital School". They have many practical experience related to: the cooperation between pupils and teachers, solving the problems - how to use new digital devices in the process of teaching/ learning, focusing on the question - what kind of e-textbooks are needed. And secondly, I think that Polish experience related to the "Coding skills" project led in cooperation between schools, local authorities and the Samsung company are worth to disseminate.