Digital skills for the future

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.