Unit 3 Today’s skills and competences
- We live in a changing world and the European Union is driving the efforts of the European society to adapt to today’s volatile world through the European Skills Agenda,
- The European Skills Agenda is a five-year plan to help individuals and businesses develop skills and put them to use for the future of Europe,
- Digitalisation, sustainability, social fairness, access to education, for everybody and everywhere in the EU and building resilience to react to crises, like the COVID-19 pandemic, are the sweeping forces and at the core of the European Union’s strategies,
- As a Union of 27 diverse economies, the European Union needs both low-skilled workers for industries like construction, hotels, agriculture and tourism as well as highly educated workers to support the twin transition, the so-called green transition and the digital transition,
- The green transition requires investments in skills and a Europe that can both think and act green and make the transition to a resource efficient, climate neutral and circular economy,
- Increasing the number of professionals with the skills and competences to develop green technologies, products, services and business models and create innovative solutions is critical,
- The digital transition must be human-centric and this requires an increase in digital skills.
- According to some estimates, in some job categories, more than 90% of jobs require specific types of digital skills.
- COVID-19 in addition to its impact on our societies and economies has highlighted both the need of digitalisation as well as the need to acquire digital skills.
- For example, the European Commission estimates that there is a gap of 291,000 professionals in cybersecurity.
- The adaption of digital technologies across the whole economy, including non-technology sectors, will require a more digitally competent workforce.
- There are several learning platforms that have emerged and can support today’s workforce and learners to acquire the skills and competences of tomorrow,
- Depending on the platform learners can pursue anything from simply becoming familiar with a new field all the way to acquiring a certification developed by global organisations like Google and IBM and even University undergraduate and graduate degrees from prestigious universities.
- Some of these platforms are:
- Coursera (https://www.coursera.org/), a platform that collaborates with 200+ leading universities and companies and can support learners to “build skills with courses, certificates, and degrees online from world-class universities and companies”,
- Edx (https://www.edx.org/), a platform with the vision of a world where every learner can access education to unlock their potential, without the barriers of cost or location,
- Udemy (https://www.udemy.com/), a platform offering over 183.000 low cost courses,
- Udacity (https://www.udacity.com/), a platform focused in digital skills,
- Skillshare (https://www.skillshare.com/), a platform best suited for creative skills.
- Learners must additionally be introduced to the complexity of today’s learning and work environment.
- Introducing the top 10 skills of tomorrow as presented by the World Economic Forum, is a good point to exemplify how the world is shifting:
- Analytical thinking and innovation,
- Active learning and learning strategies,
- Complex problem solving,
- Critical thinking and analysis,
- Creativity, originality and initiative,
- Leadership and social influence,
- Technology use monitoring and control,
- Technology design and programming,
- Resilience, stress tolerance,
- Reasoning, problem solving and ideation. (Source:https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/10/top-10-work-skills-of-tomorrow-how-long-it-takes-to-learn-them/)