A higher average level of digital literacy and competence leads to competitive advantage

Changing an educational program is generally hard and leads to a lot of political discussions as many stakeholders are involved. But it obviously has happened over time. It just generally takes a very long time to make these changes. But it can be done. I believe we have to make another important change: Introduce Informatics at all levels of education in Europe.

An example of an important change that happened in the past was the education of english in the Netherlands. When my parents went to highschool they had classes in Dutch, German and French and some also had Latin and Greek. They did not have English at school, they learned that only later because business started to require that. I started to have english classes when I started highschool. However, my youngest brother who is 8 years younger than me, started to learn English at the age of 8. So in a relatively short time frame it became clear that there was a serious need to introduce students from a very early age to English. The urgency was much higher for english than for German or French.

So why does this not happen in Informatics?

The urgency that this needs to happen has been identified by the industry and governmental institutions. The European Union has created the digital Agenda, monitors developments in this area closely and had created the „Digital Competence Framework“. But still there has not been a significant change. Why not?

It is hard to change educational programms
When would one start?
Where would you start?
Missing a proven solid methodology that can be examined
There is a serious lack of skillfull teachers

Nevertheless, we know that allready today, many jobs need some level of digital competencies. It is certain that in the future these requirements will only grow. But how do we keep up? There is already a shortage or mismatch on the labor market for highly skilled personnell with a high level of technical skills.

„33% of jobs in 2020 do not yet exist“ World Economic Forum

In Europe, most people know how to use a Smart Phone, Tablet and/or computer. Many people also know how to use applications upto some level. Not many people know how such a device or application actually works. Let alone how to build or develop one or is able to control if something works well or not.

„45% of all current tasks could be automated with present technology“ McKinsey

I am a strong believer of the concept that in order to be effective and to be able to judge the quality of information, processes and systems, you have to know how the systems work, be able to evaluate the information flow, know the source of information and who has access and the right to manipulate the information.

If people are not educated in the how, who, when and what, they will not be able to judge the quality of the information and systems they use. They can then also not be effective and in control.

Another point is; People tend to avoid things they are affraid of and generally, people are affraid of what they do not know and do not understand. Most of the people I know that are successfull in Informatics have thaught themselves and have themselves invested a lot of time in mastering a part of that subject. Generally, they became interested because in their work (finance in this case) they encountered a problem that nobody around could help them solve. It frustrates them and they start to figure out a way to solve the problem, most of the time in their own spare time. The fact that they eventually were able to fix that problem gives them a rush and their collegues complement them, both will be an incentive to futher develop their skill.

There are a few problems with this development:

Although, I admire these people a lot, I do not believe its wise to hope and wait that enough people get themselves interested in this field. Not many people have the courage, motivation and determination to do this, especially not without any background on the topic and also not doing it in their own time.
It is entirely dependent on coincidence; the system the person gets into due to a problem that occurs, in a moment in time that the person has the time and the motivation to try to fix it
It does not get enough recognition without a diploma or certificate so it does not significantly increase their market value.
Since they had to figure out a solution by themselves without background they most likely did not follow any specific methodology that can later be developed further if they leave the company. The company will not know if this solution was optimal.
Without any formal background or testing method of their newely acquired knowledge that is focussed on only a small area of the subject they will also not likely become teachers.

Now lets go back to the questions on why there has not yet been a significant change in the educational programms.

It is hard to change educational programs

It is very hard to change educational programms on a national level, let alone a European level, because there are so many stakeholders involved that all want to be taken into account. Aside from that, there are already so many mandatory subjects to teach so should a new subject be added or come in place of another? According to numerous articles, students are already stressed by the many activities they have and social expectations they encounter. Should we add another expectation to that mix?

When would one start?

Should we start teaching informatics in primary school, highschool or not start until University?

I believe we should start on all levels as it will be part of the life long learning concept. The developments go so quick and the digital impact on our lives is so big and starts so early that we should tailor our educational system to it. Many children on primary school allready have phones, tablets and/or computers at their disposal and use them not only for leisure but also for educational purposes. The time to educate starts at the same time.

In order to take away the mistery and get more young people excited; including girls, we should start as soon as possible. By providing information at a young age and continue to train them; they will benefit from the knowledge in their future jobs also when they do not choose a study in that direction.

Image: OECD

By involving informatics into the curriculum from a young age it could take away the barrier between the „IT“ function and the rest of the world. Early on people will speak the same language and will be able to run projects and develop solutions from different disciplines much more efficient. There should be no Business degree that does not offer a serious module in IT. This should take away the „silo thinking“ that is now present in a large number of companies. IT should not be seen as a hardware and infrastructure provider but as an important part of a company`s strategy and a way to gain serious strategic advantage.

Where would you start?

I believe an important reason of why no real development has taken place in education is that the developments in digital/tech go much faster than formal education plans can follow. Apart from that, the topic is extremely broad. Where do you start? I believe we should start at the basics. How does a computer work? What is data? What is information? But also programming and relational modelling. And yes, that could start on primary school level and continue on highschool. SQL could be thaught next to English and French or German.

A good friend of mine grew up in Romenia. At her school they started to learn about algorithms and programming a few years before going to highschool. They had to share 1 computer for every 5 students. She says that she did not at that moment recognize the purpose of learning that. But once she started working in Finance and had to deal with information systems, she could quickly fall back on those lessons and build onto them.

Then when students leave highschool with a solid background in informatics, Universities and business schools can build further more into a field of study. For example in specific system requirements, applications and specific programming languages.

Missing a proven solid methodology that can be examined

I would say that this is not a reason to not move forward. It does not matter that there is no perfectly developed methodology yet. Its a work in progress as the developments are ongoing and moving fast. It is not like teaching a language like Latin or French that has been thaught in schools since the Middle Ages. It is something that we have to figure out along the way.

But we do need to start now or we miss the boat and that can have significant consequences for our labor market and consequently our Economy.

There is a serious lack of skillfull teachers
- Why?
  - Many informatics specialist thaught themselves, no official degree
  - Its a relatively new subject as a point of interest for a wider public, there is no proven methodology available
  - Becomming a teacher is expensive; when you did your studies and started working and you want to subsequently become a teacher it requires a large investment. Getting a teachers degree takes time during which you normally cannot work. You therefore have to reduce to a 80% or 60% work week or you would have to take a sabatical or quit your job altogether. This costs money.
  - Teachers earn much less than what an informatics specialist can earn in the private sector
  - Workload in IT is high and may be difficult to combine with a part time job in teaching.
  - Many IT professionals may be practical people and may not be interested in a dual career in teaching and academics
- So how do we get more teachers?
  - Making it easier to become a teacher
  - Make it cheaper
  - Make it easy to combine a teaching job with a job in the private sector like a dual career
  - Allow teachers to experiment with the topic
  - Give companies incentives to lend out their staff to teach
  - Make it easy to follow teaching modules next to other study`s so that when a student studies for example Computer Science, he or she can also follow a module in teaching which will give him or her the right credentials to later in his or her career start teaching.
  - Pay more
  - Change the image of teachers but also of the sector.

I believe we should materilaize on our European network and take a look at what for example that school in Rumania has accomplished over the last 25 years and build further on that. It can be an open learning platform for teachers and policy makers.

We could also make use of modern technology and take very good webinars to teach children certain skills. This way, you need less teachers to teach more children.

In order to make this change we need full buy in from all stakeholders: business, government, schools and professionals.

How can businesses help?

Businesses will gain a lot when they participate. As mentioned before, it would increase the skilled workforce and subsequentlyreduce scarcity, increase diversity and improve communication accross fuctions There would be more room to develop new solutions.

Businesses could help a lot by for example providing eductaion tools like open platforms, education licences, cases but also providing places to do internships or write theseses. They could also lend out their IT staff for teaching.

Why would they do that? For software companies it would for example be very interesting to develop school packages from their products as it will allow students to train their skills in these products and it will become widely available. This makes it interesting for future developers to build on to these products because they are familiar with them. But also for companies to integrate those products as they can get good employees that have these skills available. Moreover, it can provide an open learning platform that can provide for unexpected input from students that can be very usefull for the development of future products. Many companies already do this for students from universities but this should be expanded to students from Highschool and/or Primary schools.

It is also interesting to lend their employees as they can pitch the company to a large number of potential new employees. It can also motivate their employees. The company would be contributing socially to the community and their employees can identify talents and scout them at an early stage.

„In 2017, 10% of the EU labour force had no digital skills at all“ European Commission

What if we don`t?

It is known that a higher average level of education of a nationals workforce has a positive impact on a country’s economic performance and stability. When the requirements for a large share of the future jobs shift towards higher digital skills and a nation does not keep up, its workforce will have more dificulty in finding a job. Level of unemployment will rise, companies will either higher employees from other countries or move to countries where the workforce meets their needs. Also technological developments in that country will slow down which again would have an impact on the competitiveness of a country’s ability to attract and keep businesses interested to be located there.

„The evidence is clear that the UK faces a digital skills crisis. Although comparative nations are facing similar challenges, only urgent action from industry, schools and universities and from the Government can prevent this skills crisis from damaging our productivity and economic competitiveness“. House of Commons United Kingdom

So we do!

But just like when the urgency became clear that we had to start teaching english to children at a younger age. We have to start budgetting for big investments in our future workforce and start providing solid informatic education on all levels, change relevant policies and change academic curricula. The infrastructure is there in most European countries, now we have to provide the European people with the knowhow to use it. It will not only secure a stable economic development for our future but also provide a significant economic advantage.

A higher average level of digital literacy and competence leads to competitive advantage

Evelien Velthuijsen

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