There is virtually no-one, from young children to the very elderly, who does not engage in some way with digital technologies in today’s Britain. The average adult spends almost half of his or her waking hours using the products and services of the digital information and communications industries, whether at work, at home or on the move.
There are three broad categories of skills, which of course overlap and share core competencies.
* Digital Life Skills – needed by all
* Digital Work Skills – needed by most
* Digital Economy Skills – needed by some
More than 22 million in the UK use computers for tasks of varying sophistication in our work every day: these people need digital work skills, which will serve them well also in their leisure and home life. More than 2 million people work directly in creating, providing, maintaining and supporting the systems, network, software applications and content on which the rest of us depend: these people need a higher level of skills, which often draw both upon vital creative skills as well as technical digital skills, alongside the basic competencies of digital work skills.
The education and skills needed to support these categories must be both wide for the many who use the digital technologies for leisure and work (ICT also provides a vital enabling infrastructure in which education and learning take place right across the curriculum); and deep, for the still very large numbers who design and provide for Digital Britain.
Britain is by no means at the back of the pack globally. But neither do we lead. This country has the potential to become a leader. All the evidence is that effective deployment, understanding and use of digital technologies are crucial to every business’s competitiveness. For some it is transforming.
For the supply of high-quality professionals for Digital Britain, the challenges are long-standing and deep-seated: our national willingness to engage in education with the ‘hard’ subjects- mathematics, technology and the physical sciences; our ability to combine, in those who do, creative and cognitive capability and deep technical competence with interpersonal and business skills; and the relevance of courses to business and the understanding of the career opportunities for students of both sexes.
The simple message at the core of this interim report is that we cannot afford to treat education and training for digital technologies as just another ‘vertical’ subject area. It underpins everything we do in the 21st Century. Successful, emerging economies have already embraced this message. We must do likewise.
Similarly, in education and training for digital life skills, we need a step change in approach, starting with the youngest. The interim report of Sir Jim Rose’s independent review of the primary curriculum is one very encouraging sign. He rightly focuses on the need effectively to engage an entire generation growing up with the internet, multi-media formats and broadband. This starts with inspiring and innovative programmes and initiatives to engage a new generation of students and attract them into technology-inspired and creative careers.
The Government’s report on the creative industries, Creative Britain proposed pathways through training, apprenticeships and support for business start up in the creative sector. As part of this strategy, the Find your Talent initiative offers young people regular involvement with arts and culture in and out of school to develop their own creative skills. Likewise, the Sector Skills Councils, e-skills UK and Skillset, have recognised the urgent need to change attitudes and stimulate demand among young people for technology and creative media-related degrees and careers. For example, the project Revitalise IT, led by e-Skills UK, aims to build on its existing employer-supported education programmes including the Information Technology Management for Business (ITMB) degree course, while the new Diplomas in IT and Creative Media for 14-19 year olds, and Skillset’s Digital Media Apprenticeship are also noteworthy.
The first step is to understand the importance of ensuring that all children and young people in education have access to the right level of learning and technical resources to enable them to develop the vital first steps of digital life skills and digital work skills without which they will be unable to play a full part in society. To achieve that, we will also need to ensure that our teachers have the skills and support they require to provide the right level of learning.
The Government is also looking at the ways to ensure that the most disadvantaged young people are not left behind because they lack technical facilities in their homes.
One key initiative in this area was recently launched by the Prime Minister, who in the Home Access programme made clear that every child in England should have access to a computer to enable them to fully engage in their education and through this initiative also be equipped for the contemporary knowledge economy.
The Government must not ignore those adults who are disadvantaged because they lack these crucial digital life and work skills: at the life skills level, we can address these issues through Media Literacy with which we deal in the next section.
At the level of digital work skills, we are working to ensure that education and skills provision is reaching those who need it, offering the right level of support to meet the needs and aspirations of both learners and potential employers. The recently announced initiatives to offer training to job seekers also offers important support. It is also encouraging to see some good examples of employers sustaining and even in some instances increasing their commitment to training and skills development for their workforces, recognising the evidence that investment in the workforce is one of the best strategies for economic development. We will be returning to this important subject in our final report.
The digital economy skills build on the basic competencies and introduce and integrate a wide range of creative, technological and business skills. The digital economy relies upon these hybrid professionals who can bridge technology, creativity and business. It needs leaders and managers throughout business understanding and being able to manage the links between business strategy, innovation and creativity, and technological deployment.
The pathways from education to business are complicated. There is more work to be done to strengthen the understanding of the ways for education and business to work together to create the skilled workers and leaders which businesses need. We make the most of partnerships for research and development and innovation. We will be working with the Sector Skills Councils to develop some practical action points for Government, higher education and work sectors for the final report.
The Government has asked Liam Byrne and Alan Millburn to look specifically at the media in their work on New Opportunities. The country cannot afford for this important area to miss out on the talent of people simply because of where they live or because they do not know the right entry points. We need to make sure that we find and develop all talent.
Within the creative industries, there is still a tendency to regard investment in skills and training as the first area to be cut in hard times rather than the first area for investment.
The Sector Skills Councils have done excellent work in bringing together training provision to support the many small and medium-sized businesses working in the creative industries, and to offer personal development provision within and between different areas of these converging sectors. We will also be asking them to come forward with recommendations on further actions for our final report.
Government already has a significant workplan underway to address skills, including the Skillset Media Academy, the Diplomas in IT and Creative Media, the IT Management and Business degree and the National Skills Academy for IT, which is due to open this year. In line with our recent High Level Skills Strategy, we look to employers and the Higher Education Sector to collaborate effectively around meeting demand for higher level skills, ensuring continuing investment in both the existing and future work force.
In addition, the Government has established the Technology Strategy Board (TSB) to promote and support research into, and development and exploitation of, technology and innovation for the benefit of UK business, in order to increase economic growth and improve the quality of life. Digital Creative Industries have been a priority application area for R&D funding. It has also invested in Knowledge Transfer Networks (KTNs) which are national networks in specific fields of technology or business application, e.g. Creative Industries & Digital Communications, which bring together people from businesses, universities, further education, research, finance, the public sector and technology organisations to stimulate innovation through knowledge exchange.
The Digital Britain team will continue to work with other government departments, and agencies including DIUS, Becta, HEFCE and DCSF in taking forward our work in this area. This is an area that requires business, education providers and the voluntary sectors to work together and it is an area where we welcome responses to this interim report.
We will return with recommendations across digital life-skills, digital work-skills and digital economy skills, in the final Digital Britain Report.
