Despite numerous initiatives and billions of dollars in investment, only 55.6 percent of EU adults have basic digital skills. According to the target set by the Digital Decade strategy, this percentage should rise to 80 percent by 2030.
How to achieve this? A recent report by the Joint Research Center (JRC) seeks the answer by suggesting that digital skills training should be made more accessible and engaging for young people.
These days, you need basic digital skills to get by in society and the job market. But a bunch of people in the EU are still struggling with things like editing documents online, understanding cybersecurity, and taking online courses. While most adults can communicate over email or social media, a lot of people find it hard to create digital content and solve tech problems.
People with lower education levels are especially at risk of being left behind in the digital world. This group has the highest number of adults without even basic digital skills. But education isn’t the only factor. The type of work someone does is also important – people in manual labour jobs are worse with technology than unemployed or inactive people.
There are also differences between people in cities and rural areas due to socioeconomic factors and less access to digital infrastructure outside of big cities. These inequalities become even worse when they overlap. For example, even though young people are usually better with technology, 32% of 16- to 24-year-olds have below-basic digital skills. And for young people with low education, it’s even higher at 43%.
The Digital Decade policy agenda calls for at least 8 in 10 EU adults to have basic digital competencies in the coming years. However, the latest “State of the Digital Decade” report from 2024 shows that without additional measures, only about 60% of citizens will reach this level by 2030.
JRC experts say that we need to focus on improving specific skills. People need to get better at creating digital content like documents, graphics, and presentations. They also need to learn more about cybersecurity and how to fix tech problems. These are the skills that really separate those who have basic digital skills from those who don’t.
We need to start teaching young people who don’t have much education about digital skills early on, starting in elementary and vocational school. But it’s important to keep teaching them these skills after they finish school. We should set up informal training programs and on-the-job training so they can catch up and learn the skills they need.
We also can’t forget about older people and people who don’t use the internet very often. Around 8% of adults in the EU don’t use digital tech very much, which makes it really easy for them to be left out of the digital world. So, the EU should also make programs specifically for older people and others who have trouble accessing digital tools.
Developing digital skills is a pillar of the EU’s digital transformation, and the EU has allocated €26.3 billion for this purpose between 2021 and 2027. While funding is essential, the key to success lies in implementing strategies and actions that cater to the specific needs of various societal groups, particularly young people.
The JRC analysis, based on Eurostat’s 2023 data on five key areas of digital competence (information retrieval, communication, content creation, security, and problem-solving), aims to guide policymakers, educators, and NGOs in creating effective and engaging education and training programs for young people.
To accelerate progress towards the 2030 goal, the European Commission has proposed the Skills Union initiative. It intends to support investment in developing digital competencies for adults, promoting lifelong learning, recognising diverse forms of education, and facilitating worker mobility between member states through common qualification standards.
Europe has time to bridge the digital divide, but success hinges on adapting solutions to meet the needs of those currently excluded from the digital world, especially young people.
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