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Digital skills (RP2024)

(A.) Policy and legislation

(A.1)   Policy objectives

The development of digital skills is currently a political priority for the European Commission and for Member States. In her political guidelines, President von der Leyen highlighted the need to unlock the potential of digital technologies for learning and teaching and to develop digital skills for all. Digital is one of the 6 Commission priorities for 2019-2024 with a dedicated digital strategy to empower people with a new generation of technologies, named "A Europe Fit for the Digital Age". The policy objectives are:

  • to ensure that all citizens can develop their digital skills;
  • to support the development of advanced and specialised digital skills;
  • to support education and training in their digital transition. 

The Skills Agenda, adopted in July 2020, is a five-year plan to help individuals and businesses develop more and better skills for resilience, recovery and for a fair and just green and digital transition. The Skills Agenda supports the development of digital skills with specific initiatives such as "Skills to support the green and digital transitions" or "Increasing STEM graduates, fostering entrepreneurial and transversal skills", among others,  Digital Crash Courses for SMEs and “digital volunteers” programme to upskill the current workforce in digital areas, and ICT-Jump-Start trainings to provide short-term intensive training to tackle ICT skills shortages, with a focus on gender-balanced participation.

The first of the flagship action of the Skills Agenda is the EU Pact for Skills, a shared engagement model for skills development in Europe addressing up- and re-skilling to support a fair and resilient recovery and deliver on the ambitions of the green and digital transitions. Signatories of the Pact are strongly encouraged to translate their engagement into concrete commitments on upskilling and reskilling. 

The Skills Agenda contribute to achieving the objectives of the Digital Compass, which translates the EU’s digital ambitions for the next decade into clear, concrete targets, setting out a European way for the digital decade. Specifically, the Digital Compass puts forward the target of reaching by 2030 20 million ICT specialists (with convergence between man and women) and the minimum of 80% of the population to have acquired digital skills. 

(A.2) EC perspective and progress report

Pan-European digital competences (e-competences) frameworks and tools, as well as  efficient and interoperable digital-learning solutions are indispensable for reducing digital skills shortages, gaps and mismatches. Similar activities are under development in the United States, Russia, Japan, Australia, Canada, South Africa and Latin America, and other parts of the world. In the early 2000s, the development of national frameworks had already begun in the UK, Germany, France, Italy and other European countries. In the Council Conclusions of 23 November 2007, Member States supported the Commission’s intention to continue to provide a platform for the exchange of best practices, and to promote a regular dialogue on digital skills (e-skills) and develop a European e-Competence Framework.

Progress has been made with the development of the EN 16234-1 European e-Competence Framework for ICT professionals being available and with a CEN Technical Committee, CEN/TC 428 on ICT Professionalism and Digital Competences. 

Launched in 2016, the Digital Skills and Jobs Coalition is bringing together Member States, companies, social partners, non-profit organisations and education providers, who take action to tackle the lack of digital skills in Europe.

(A.3) References
  • COM(2020) 624 Communication “Digital Education Action Plan 2021-2027 — resetting education and training for the digital age” outlining the European Commission’s vision for high quality, inclusive and accessible digital education in Europe in a lifelong learning perspective. It is a call to action for stronger cooperation at EU level and foresees the development of digital skills as one of two strategic priorities, with 7 dedicated actions that contribute to enhancing the digital skills of all citizens. 
  • COM(2020) 274 Communication “The European Skills Agenda — for sustainable competitiveness, social fairness and resilience” which is a five-year plan to help individuals and businesses develop more and better skills, by strengthening sustainable competitiveness; ensuring social fairness; and building resilience to react to crises, based on the lessons learnt during the COVID-19 pandemic
  • COM (2018) 22 On 17 January 2018 the Commission published the first “Digital Education Action Plan” to support technology-use and digital competence development in education (primary, secondary, higher education).
  • Council Recommendation (2018/C 189/01) on key competences for lifelong learning
  • COM(2016) 381 On 10 June 2016 the European Commission published "A new skills agenda for Europe — Working together to strengthen human capital, employability and competitiveness". It presents a number of actions and initiatives aiming to tackle the digital skills deficit in Europe. One of these actions is the launch in December 2016 of the Digital Skills and Jobs Coalition to develop a large digital talent pool and ensure that individuals and the labour force in Europe are equipped with adequate digital skills. This new coalition builds on the work already done under the Grand Coalition for Digital Jobs and the EU e-skills strategy, and will bring together a broader set of stakeholders beyond ICT-sector, including ICT-using sectors, training organisations, academia, social partners and Member States.
  • COM(2016) 180 On 18 April 2016 the European Commission published the Communication Digitising European industry, which introduced a set of coherent policy measures as part of a digital single market technologies and public service modernisation package. Part of the communication is devoted to digital skills. In particular, it calls for human capital ready for the digital transformation with the necessary skills.
  • COM(2013)654  Communication Open up education: innovative teaching and learning for all through new technologies and open educational resources".
  • IP/13/182 Grand coalition for digital jobs

(B.) Requested actions

General recommendation: Standardisation proposals must be based on clear and well-defined market needs and be developed in full coherence with multi-stakeholder initiatives and public policies in this area. These include relevant European Commission’s Communications: “e-Skills for the 21st Century” (2007); “Digitising European Industry” (2016); “European Skills Agenda” (2020) as well as the on-going Digital Skills and Jobs Coalition and a Blueprint for Sectoral Cooperation on Skills; and “Digital Education Action Plan” (2020). The aim is to reduce skills shortages, gaps and mismatches; foster ICT professionalism and digital competence; and further mature the ICT profession, building on the European e-competence framework for ICT professionals and the digital competency framework for citizens.

Relevant stakeholders from the education sector, EdTech industry and policy makers are encouraged to join and engage into standardisation activities to ensure that the European EdTech standards developed support how schools would like to use technology to reach their educational and pedagogical goals. At the same time we need to ensure that requirements are implementable by the EdTech industry, where EdTech products developed, based on developed standards supports the goal of the Commission.

The public and private sectors need to collaborate on the following topics :

Action 1: SDO to make further progress towards a comprehensive framework for ICT professionals integrating four building blocks: (1) European e-competence framework (e-CF) and related job profiles, (2) foundational body of knowledge, (3) qualifications and certifications, and (4) ethics and values. This must now be complemented by relevant methods and tools for the further development, efficient implementation and regular maintenance of this framework to strengthen ICT professionalism in Europe and foster balanced international dialogue and cooperation on this subject

  • The standard (EN 16234-1:2016) was adopted in 2016. It provides a common European description about the knowledge, skills and competences of the ICT professional workforce in all sectors. Its review - CEN/TC 428 project (SA 2017-03) - was successfully completed and a new version was released in 2019 (EN 1634-1:2019). 
  • The next action is to provide an efficient solution to stakeholders, ICT and digital related user, supply and service organisations, businesses of all sizes in all sectors (multinationals and SMEs), Chief Information Officers (CIOs), Human Resources departments, ICT professionals and digital leaders, managers and workers, and education and training organisations on how to apply standards and implement a comprehensive framework. Effective tools and precise guidelines will need to be developed, along with extensive, additional case studies to illustrate practical implementation.
  • Taking into account that digital technologies are rapidly evolving, the framework will need regular review and update in a consistent and integrated manner. This update of EN16234-1 will become due in 2022, and must not be delayed.
  • Consideration must also be given to the competence areas identified in the Blueprint for Sectoral Cooperation on European Skills Agenda plans for specific ICT areas, software skill, blockchain and cybersecurity. Significant projects are underway in these topics and these can form the basis of further standards development to underpin the results of these projects and to provide a sound return on investment in the work, assisting the supply of urgently required skills, and  attracting more entrants to the profession.

Action 2: Organisational capability: take stock of ongoing assessments, initiatives and their impacts regarding the capability of organisations (such as the report on Digital organisational frameworks and IT professionalism) in the context of the digital skills/e-competence of the personnel. Match personnel competence with organisational processes and procedures to ensure best return on investment in ICT. 

Action 3: International cooperation: European SDOs need to coordinate and establish a regular dialogue and cooperation with international level with relevant associations (IEEE, ACM etc.) and standardisation bodies (ISO, NIST, IEEE etc.) in the field of ICT professionalism and digital competence.

Action 4: The consolidation of ICT professional framework that includes the European e-Competence Framework (EN 16234-1:2019) has been advanced following the publication of the outputs of additional work items CEN/TR 17748-1 (Foundational Body of Knowledge for the ICT Profession (ICT BoK), CEN/TR 17802 (e-Competence performance indicators and common metrics), CEN/TS 17699 (Guidelines for developing ICT Professional Curricula as scoped by EN16234-1 (e-CF) and CEN/TS 17834 (European Professional Ethics Framework for the ICT Profession (EU ICT Ethics)).

This work should be the basis for a new coherence in the definition and promotion of digital user skills (non-professional). Definition of digital skills at all levels, via a common language, avoids confusion and facilitates a progression in skills development that is appropriate for citizens in all walks of life, and also for addressing the skill and competence needs of the ICT profession. A planned coordination of outputs, like the e-Competence Framework and DigComp can broaden the influence of both constituencies, and the resulting beneficial impact on the development of high level professional skills, and is therefore an essential part of this work. New standards work items in this regard will be particularly important to leverage this synergy.

Action 5: Develop principles and standards to ensure responsible EdTech development, specifically in the area of hybrid human-AI learning technologies. For teachers and technology to complement each other, EdTech must be understandable for and adaptable by teachers. The Collaborative Trust  Framework for EdTech is an example of such a set of principles under development.

(C.) Activities and additional information 

(C.1) Related standardisation activities
CEN

CEN/TC 428 'ICT Professionalism and Digital Competences' is responsible for the standardisation of a common language of professional ICT and digital competences, skills and knowledge applied in all domains. A non-exhaustive list of areas where CEN/TC 428 can develop its activity follows:

  • EN 16234:2019 (e-CF) maintenance and evolution
  • Interaction with different Frameworks
  • Curricula guidance
  • Professional profiles
  • Provide guidance for the assessment against EN 16234 (e-CF)

See: CEN/TC 428 - ICT Professionalism and Digital Competences published standards

The CEN workshop on ICT Skills has been definitively replaced by the CEN/TC 428.

IEEE

  • IEEE 1484.20.2, Recommended Practices for Defining Competencies 
  • IEEE 3527.1, Standard for Digital Intelligence (DQ) - Framework for Digital Literacy, Skills, and Readiness
  • IEEE P1484.2, Interoperable Learner Records (ILR) Recommended Practices 
  • IEEE P1484.20, Competency Data Standards 
  • IEEE P1484.20.3, Standard for Reusable Competency Definitions
  • IEEE P2955, Recommended Practice for Creating Self Learning Tutorials and Side by Side Learning
  • IEEE P2997, Enterprise Learner Record
  • IEEE P3202, Standard for Capability Evaluation Requirements of Blockchain Practitioners
  • IEEE P7015, Standard for Data and AI Literacy

For more information, see: https://ieee-sa.imeetcentral.com/eurollingplan/.

ISO/IEC JTC1

SC 27 "Competence requirements for information security management systems professionals"

SC 7/WG 20 "Software and Systems Bodies of Knowledge and Professionalisation and related activities"

SC 36 "Information Technology for Learning Education and Training” has in particular the following published standards of relevance:

  • ISO/IEC 2382-36: Information Technology - Vocabulary - Part 36: Learning, Education and Training
  • ISO/IEC 19788 All parts: Information technology — Learning, education and training — Metadata for learning resources
  • ISO/IEC 20013: Information technology for learning, education and training — Reference framework of e-Portfolio information
  • ISO/IEC 22602: Information technology — Learning, education and training — Competency models expressed in MLR
  • ISO/IEC 23126: Information technology for learning, education and training — Ubiquitous learning resource organization and description framework
  • ISO/IEC 23127: Information technology — Learning, education, and training — Metadata for facilitators of online learning
  • ISO/IEC TR 20748: Information technology for learning, education and training — Learning analytics interoperability
  • ISO/IEC TR 20821: Information technology — Learning, education and training — Learning environment components for automated contents adaptation
  • ISO/IEC TR 23842: Information technology for learning, education and training — Human factor guidelines for virtual reality content

See https://www.iso.org/committee/45392/x/catalogue/p/1

ITU

ITU-T Study Group 20 approved Recommendation ITU-T Y.4485 “Requirements and Reference Architecture of Smart Education” and is currently working on draft Recommendation ITU-T Y.RemoteEd “Requirements, capabilities and architectural frameworks for e-learning in remote classrooms”.

More information can be found here: https://itu.int/go/tsg20.

(C.2) additional information

This topic is suitable for standardisation for well-documented needs. Fostering ICT professionalism is a challenging task and is essential to ensure that the European economy has the supply of professional skills that it needs and that are currently not being delivered in sufficient numbers. Digital skills must also be provided, at appropriate levels, to the whole population, including those who usually find more barriers in accessing ICT, such as old people and people with disabilities. Efforts to facilitate this cohort of people could include accessible e-learning environments, such as accessible MOOCs. As new technologies and new areas of their application emerge rapidly, establishing standardised skill sets is a great challenge requiring timely and regular updates. Since the 1990s, this topic has primarily been addressed by public-private partnerships with the ICT industry. More recently, many countries around the world have launched standardisation efforts. There is a need to maintain a European platform for exchanging best practices, implementing a master plan and coordinating across Europe. The existing structure of the CEN TC 428 - ICT Professionalism and Digital Competences - constitutes a good place for such a piece of work — following the already successful development of the e-CF.

The e-Skills Manifesto also contains contributions from various stakeholders. See: http://ec.europa.eu/DocsRoom/documents/21341/attachments/1/translations/en/renditions/pdf

EN 16234-1 is the only existing standard in the field of ICT professionalism, focusing on e-Competences at the European and national level. Though several European organisations have started promoting and using the e-CF, those local implementations do not always fully comply with EN 16234-1, and local adaptations and application platforms make the standard more attractive to clients not accustomed to standardised approaches. Since 2019, new initiatives to produce standards, pre-standards and supportive documentation in the area of digital competences are ongoing e.g. development of a professional Body of Knowledge, IT Certifications and Qualifications, Curriculum Development Guidelines, development of an ICT Professional Ethics Framework, and specification of Common Metrics for e-Competences. Alongside this work, there is work underway to update the EN-16234-1, incorporating a mapping with SFIA of the UK (Skills Framework for the Information Age). All of this takes place in the context of the ICT professionalism framework project. At the same time, new initiatives on ICT competences are ongoing internationally as well, e.g. in ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 7 and ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 27. New standards may be developed, which might conflict with European standards. The fragmentation of the global digital market could undermine interoperability, which so far has led the European action. There is the need to support initiatives, which assure European governance and influence in the ISO.

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