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Hello, my name is Sergio Lujan Mora. I am professor at the University of Alicante in Spain. In this short seminar I am going to talk about how digital skills in education are addressed in the European Union and in Spain. Digital skills are indispensable – for learning, for working and in everyday life. A rapidly changing, technology-driven economy and society require everybody to have digital skills. This has become especially relevant during the current COVID-19 pandemic. Digital competences and skills are essential to give every individual an equal chance to thrive in life, find employment and to be an engaged citizen. Virtually all future learning and jobs will require some level of digital competences and skills. Nowadays, there are few, if any, jobs that don’t need some level of computer use, and government and commercial services, like tax, unemployment, insurance, or health-care, are increasingly online. Constant technological change requires the lifelong development of competences and skills by all learners to participate in social life. Digital skills, from the basic digital literacy of working with files and folders, and getting about online, to the more advanced topics of coding, developing ‘information literacy’, and understanding how to stay safe online, should be a key part of any young persons’ education. Being equipped with the right digital skills means being equipped for the future of work and life. But do young people really have digital skills? The term digital native describes a person who has grown up in the information age. These individuals can consume digital information and stimuli quickly and comfortably through electronic devices and platforms such as computers, mobile phones, and social media. Many people think that digital natives obtain by themselves the necessary digital skills they will need to be successful in their future. Many people assume that students are digitally fluent because there’s way more technology around them than ever before. Many people assume that students will grasp tech tools simply because they’re growing up in a digital age. The term digital native suggests that young people intuitively know how to use technology and hence have no need for digital education or training. However, this is a myth, this is a huge misconception. Many studies have highlighted the problems behind the myth of the digital native and the negative implications it can have for some young people, particularly those who are already experiencing forms of social inequalities. A lot of times students aren't receiving any sort of formal computer-skills training. And because of this, digital native students also struggled to use a digital learning platform or to type without painstaking hunt-and-pecking at the keyboard. ing to the work “The Fallacy of the ‘Digital Native’: Why Young People Need to Develop their Digital Skills”, published by the European Computer Driving Licence Foundation: Young people do not inherently possess the skills for safe and effective use of technologies, and skills acquired informally are likely to be incomplete. The failure to provide youth with a complete set of skills in a formal manner leads to a new digital divide between digital lifestyle skills and digital workplace skills. The lack of proficiency in the tools needed for today’s workforce contributes to an increasingly lost generation, who are unable to realise their full potential as learners, employees, entrepreneurs or citizens using digital technologies. In conclusion, the misconception of the digital native leads to a new kind of digital divide and creates new forms of social inequalities. Therefore, we have to work to guarantee that no-one will be left behind or excluded from the digital world. Digitalisation must become part of the educational and vocational training environment, as regards access to digital media, the teaching methods applied and the curricula designed, at all levels of education: primary, secondary, vocational training and universities. Thus, digital literacy will be instilled as a fundamental human resource from earliest childhood, and the principle of lifelong learning will become a reality. The use of digital technologies in teaching and learning has been increasingly introduced in education systems in recent years. Furthermore, during the COVID-19 health crisis, schools across the world switched to online and remote learning using digital technologies. This shift led to a growing demand for educators’ professional development programmes and support to further develop their digital competence. How digital skills in education are addressed in the European Union and in Spain? In the European Union, the Digital Education Action Plan is a renewed European Union policy initiative that sets out a common vision of high-quality, inclusive and accessible digital education in Europe, and aims to support the adaptation of the education and training systems of Member States to the digital age. The Digital Education Action Plan sets out two strategic priorities and fourteen actions to support them. The Priority 1: Fostering the development of a high-performing digital education ecosystem. And Priority 2: Enhancing digital skills and competences for the digital transformation. In this priority I would like to highlight Action 9: European Digital Skills Certificate and Action 10: Proposal for a Council recommendation on improving the provision of digital skills in education and training. Regarding the Action 9: European Digital Skills Certificate, the European Union is promoting the development of a high-performing European digital education ecosystem and is seeking to enhance citizens’ competences and skills for the digital transition. Digital skills are indispensable – for learning, for working and in everyday life. A rapidly changing, technology-driven economy and society require everybody to have digital skills. However, digital skills can often become ‘lost in translation’ and be hard for people to have recognised. This is part due to the existence of a large diversity of digital skills training and certification schemes produced by multiple organisations and governments. This is why the European Commission is exploring the development of a European Digital Skills Certificate (EDSC) to help people have their digital skills quickly and easily recognised by employers, training providers and more. The EDSC will be based on the European Digital Competence Framework (DigComp), which continues to be updated so that citizens can document the digital skills they have acquired in today’s fast-moving digital world. The European Digital Skills Certificate is not a new idea. The International Computer Driving Licence (ICDL), formerly known as European Computer Driving Licence (ECDL), is a computer literacy certification program provided by ECDL Foundation. The ECDL certification programme was developed in 1995 to be a Europe-wide certification scheme. By the way, International Computer Driving Licence is available in Kyrgyzstan through a couple of test centres. ICDL provides different types of certification: ICDL Workforce: Digital skills for employability and productivity. ICDL Professional: Digital skills for occupational effectiveness. ICDL Insights: Digital understanding for business managers. ICDL Digital Student: Digital skills to design and develop, share and protect. ICDL Digital Citizen: Digital skills to access, engage and build computer confidence. Regarding ICDL Digital Student, the certification includes the modules create and collaborate, compute and code,, and essential skills. Regarding the Action 10: Proposal for a Council recommendation on improving the provision of digital skills in education and training, the technological progress has raised exponentially the need for digital skills and competences at all levels across the economy and society. Yet, levels of digital skills remain insufficient. Therefore, the objective of this action is to empower Europeans to develop basic, intermediate and advanced digital skills through education and training, The initiative will articulate the steps needed to promote digital competence development from an early age and at all stages of education and training. In the framework of these programmes of the European Union, Spain is conducting its own plans and activities. Compared to other countries of the European Union, Spain is reasonably well placed in rankings of the Digital Economy and Society (11th out of 28 in the global DESI index). The Digital Economy and Society Index (DESI), published by the European Commission, reflects the degree of competitiveness of each EU Member State within the digital economy and society. This Index combines and summarises 44 indicators related to five dimensions: connectivity, human capital, the use of internet services, the integration of digital technology and the extension of digital public services. The latest edition was published in June 2020. In 2019, Spain ranked 11th in this Index, among the 28 EU Member States. The corresponding data were obtained before the impact of the COVID-19 epidemic was felt, and therefore a subsequent improvement is to be expected in the dimensions of connectivity and the use of internet services. Although Spain’s current position in this ranking should be considered positive, it has worsened since the tenth place recorded in the previous two years. Nevertheless, the overall score has risen by four points since 2019 and seven points since 2018. In 2021, Pedro Sanchez, the Prime Minister of Spain, announced a 11-billion euro investment to boost digitalisation of small and medium-sized enterprises and public authorities and strengthen digital skills. In Spain, current statistics say that 60% of the population has basic digital skills. This means that almost half of the Spanish population lacks basic digital skills. In addition, 8% of the Spanish population have never used the internet. For this reason, the main goal of the National Plan for Digital Skills, which forms part of the 2025 Digital Agenda, is to ensure that all citizens, but especially the working population, women and the elderly, acquire basic digital skills. The National Plan for Digital Skills has seven lines of action, focused on four axes: First, Transversal digital skills. Second, Digital transformation of education. Third, Digital skills for employment. And fourth, the last one, Digital professionals. I would like to highlight line 1, Provide digital skills training for the general population (with special attention to groups at risk of digital exclusion) and line 3 Digitalise the education system and develop digital skills for learning. Regarding the Line 1: Digital skills training for the general population, the aim of this line of action is to equip citizens for the digital age by achieving universal competence in basic digital skills such that everybody will be able to communicate, shop, perform transactions and interact with public administrations via digital technologies, comfortably and self-sufficiently. Basically, this line of action proposes the creation of national digital training centres. This sort of facility is essential for persons who have zero digital skills, since it offers face-to-face assistance and technical support. In addition, an online platform providing massive open online courses (MOOC) should be created. Regarding the Line 3: Digitalise the education system and develop digital skills for learning, the aim of this line of action is to ensure that all students acquire the digital skills necessary for social integration and successful career development, which will depend on their ability to make good use of advanced technologies and to keep this knowledge up to date. Basically, this line of action proposes the inclusion of digital skills and programming in compulsory education; the provision of open educational resources to use digital media in teaching and the development of an authoring tool for this purpose. The development of a Programme for vocational training in digital skills and also the development of a Plan for university education in digital skills. And with this ends my little seminar in which I wanted to clarify some misconceptions about the term digital native and to show some of the actions that are being carried out in the European Union and in Spain to improve digital skills in education. Thank you very much!