Digital skills for the future

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Digital & Data Governance
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Digital skills for the future

Summary

Students may not be getting the kind of education they need to land them a job in the future; this was discussed at ‘Digital skills for the future’, a Friends of Europe and Google event held on 17 November. According to research carried out by The Economist’s Intelligence Unit, 51% of company executives feel the skills gap is hampering their business, while less than half (44%) of under-25s feel that their education system is teaching them what they need to succeed – which for company executives is mainly problem solving, team working and communication.

For Palo Alto-based teacher Esther Wojcicki, the answer is giving students the freedom to think for themselves. “The hardest thing of all is for them to come up with their own ideas because they’re so used to being told what to do all the time,” said Wojcicki, who has written a book on digital learning ‘Moonshots in Education: Launching Blended Learning in the Classroom’. “They want me to tell them what to do to get an A.” The presentation that Esther Wojcicki gave during the event can be downloaded here.

Irène Mia, presenting the Economist study, said it’s not all about bolstering the use of technology. “It’s important to teach people to problem solve, find their own questions and answers,” she said. “Digital skills are part of it, but they don’t need to be taught as a separate set of skills – just part of the general education,” she said.

Digital skills for the future

About

About

Technology is transforming the way we work. As the workplace adapts to an increasingly interconnected, information-rich world, the skills demanded by employers are changing too. Yet education systems are struggling to catch up. Education is less about drilling students to memorise facts and figures when we can potentially access the sum of human knowledge by speaking into our wristwatch. Less than half of students believe their education system is providing them with the skills they need to enter the workforce, and 51% of executives admit that a skills gap is hampering their organisation’s performance.


Video credit © POLITICO

Do the skills taught in education systems today meet the needs of employers and society at large? And what are the needs of employers and society at large? How can technology be used in the classroom to make learning more relevant, fun and interactive?

Schedule

Schedule

Registration of participants and sandwich lunch
Digital skills for the future
Expand Digital skills for the future

Presentation by

Irène Mia

Global Editorial Director, Thought Leadership at the Economist Group and author of the EIU ‘Driving the skills agenda: Preparing students for the future’ report

Keynote by

Esther Wojcicki

Author of ‘Moonshots in Education: Launching Blended Learning in the Classroom’, teacher at Palo Alto High School and Creative Commons Vice Chair

Panel discussion by

Jos Bertemes

Director at the Luxembourg Ministry of National Education

René Tristan Lydiksen

Managing Director of LEGO Education Europe

David Minne

Head of ICT at Belgian Primary School VZW Moorsledegem

Liz Sproat

Google’s Head of Education for Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA)

Moderated by

Tamsin Rose

Facilitator

Speakers

Speakers

Irène Mia
Irène Mia

Global Editorial Director, Thought Leadership at the Economist Group and author of the EIU ‘Driving the skills agenda: Preparing students for the future’ report

Show more information on Irène Mia

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