Education and jobs
European Commission launches Grand Coalition for Digital Jobs
Commission President José Manuel Barroso called on Europe's digital businesses, governments, training and education sectors to join a Grand Coalition for Digital Jobs to address up to 900 000 job vacancies expected to exist in Europe in Information and Communication technologies (ICT) by 2015. Despite the current levels of unemployment, the number of digital jobs is growing by more than 100 000 per year. Yet the number of fresh ICT graduates and skilled ICT workers is not keeping up.
Vice-Presidents Neelie Kroes (Digital Agenda) and Antonio Tajani (Industry and Entrepreneurship) and Commission members László Andor (Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion) and Androulla Vassiliou (Education, Culture, Multilingualism and Youth) also attended the launch of the Grand Coalition held today in Brussels, which is part of the Commission's drive to make Europe more competitive.
President Barroso said: "The Grand Coalition we launch today is an essential part of getting Europe's economy back on track and finding jobs for some of Europe's 26 million unemployed. I applaud those companies who have signed up today. If, together, we can turn the tide and fill the growing number of ICT vacancies, we will see a much wider impact across the whole economy. We want to empower Europeans to fill the jobs that will drive the next ICT revolution."
Europe cannot afford to leave employment opportunities like this unexploited. Today's announcement builds on the groundwork laid by Vice President Kroes in collecting initial pledges on new jobs, internships, training places, start-up funding, free online university courses and more from technology companies, governments, educators, social partners, employment service providers and civil society organisations at the World Economic Forum in Davos (see IP/13/52).
Initial commitments from stakeholders have been endorsed with over 15 companies and organisations signing up to the Grand Coalition. Among the first pledges to come to life is a new online learning platform for young people called the Academy Cube and a new training module for energy smart grid installers.
The Commission has sought pledges in the following key areas:
Training and matching for digital jobs – to help ensure the skills people are getting are the skills business needs;
Mobility – helping those with skills get to the place where they're needed, to avoid shortages and surpluses in different towns and cities;
Certification – making it easier to prove to an employer what skills one has, regardless of the country;
Awareness raising – so that people know the digital sector offers rewarding and enjoyable careers to both women and men;
Innovative learning and teaching – so our education and training systems expand and improve to give more people the skills for success.
President Barroso also called on organisations to follow the example of the early pledgers. The Commission has a role to play, but actions like industry-led training, assisting labour mobility, certifying skills, improving school and university curricula, raising awareness, and creating an entrepreneur friendly environment for start-ups need the active engagement of all stakeholders.
The Commission is also launching Startup Europe, a single platform for tools and programmes supporting people wanting to set up and grow web start-ups in Europe.
Filling the gaps: e-skills and education for digital jobs
On the occasion of the European conference "Filling the gaps: e-Skills and Education for Digital Jobs", the Commission is planning the launch of a Grand Coalition for Digital Jobs.
- Neelie Kroes, Vice President of the European Commission in charge of the Digital Agenda for Europe
- Antonio Tajani, Vice President of the European Commission in charge of Industry and Entrepreneurship
- Androulla Vassiliou, Commissioner for Education, Culture, Multilingualism and Youth
- Laszlo Andor, Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion.
The Grand Coalition for Digital Jobs is an EU wide multi-stakeholder partnership seeking to address the shortfall in the number of professionals with the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) skills that are highly demanded by the industry. The goal is to increase the supply of ICT professionals by 2015, so as to ensure a sufficient number of them in Europe by 2020. In order to achieve this, the European Commission is offering to forces with industry associations and is inviting Member States, regions and concerned stakeholders (from industry, education, public employment services, various national platforms and others) to engage in this partnership.
17th Meeting of the EDUC Commission
The chair, Mr Anton Rombouts, invites you to attend the commission's 17th meeting, to be held at the Committee building, 101 rue Belliard/Belliardstraat, 1040 Bruxelles/Brussel (room JDE 52) on Monday 25 February 2013 from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.
European Skills Passport launched
The European Skills Passport, which helps people to assemble their skills and qualifications online, has now been launched by the European Commission.
The Passport enables people to improve the presentation of their CVs by bringing together their educational and training certificates in one place, providing evidence for the qualifications and skills declared in the CV. It is available for free in 26 languages on the Europass portal where an on-line editor helps users to create their individual passports. It complements the Europass CV which is used by more than 20 million Europeans.
By giving a clear and comprehensive picture of the skills and qualifications users refer to in their CVs, the European Skills Passport helps job-seekers to improve their chances on the labour market and employers to find qualified personnel.
The European Skills Passport is one of thirteen actions launched under the Commission's Agenda for New Skills and Jobs, which aims to make Europe's labour markets work better.
Rethinking Education:Investing in skills for better socio-economic outcomes
Communication from the Comission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Commitee of the Regions.
Investment in education and training for skills development is essential to boost growth and competitiveness: skills determine Europe's capacity to increase productivity. In the long-term, skills can trigger innovation and growth, move production up the value chain, stimulate the concentration of higher level skills in the EU and shape the future labour market. The massive increase in the global supply of highly skilled people over the last decade puts Europe to the test. The time when competition came mainly from countries that could offer only low-skilled work has come to an end. The quality of education and supply of skills has increased
worldwide and Europe must respond.
eSkills - The most relevant bibliographical sources
We are starting to publish a new series of bibliography entries that we think will be of especial interest for people doing reseach on e-Skills and their relation to the 21st Century job market.
This is a report resulting from Education Sector’s Next Generation of Accountability initiative. The initiative seeks to strengthen public education by examining key elements of accountability, for instance, who should be responsible for student success and how they should be held responsible. This particular article seeks to build on the strengths of current school accountability systems, more fully and effectively measure the depth and breadth of students’ educational experiences, and encourage educators, parents, policymakers, and the larger public to pursue educational equity and excellence for all students by focussing on measuring 21st century skills of secondary school students at a private boarding school.
European Active Ageing and Solidarity between Generations Awards
The European Active Ageing and Solidarity between Generations Awards are primarily inspiring initiatives that promote active ageing and solidarity between generations.
Please read the general and the specific rules for each category below. Entries will only be accepted if submitted using the online entry form by the deadline set for each category (see table above).
For more information about the generations@school competition and the Life Story Challenge go to http://www.historypin.com/gats/en/page/generations-school-project-contribute-content and http://www.lifestory-historypin.com.
Workplaces for all Ages awards – Specific rules and information
Social Entrepreneurs awards – Specific rules and information
Journalists awards – Specific rules and information
Towards Age-Friendly Environments awards – Specific rules and information