Evaluation of the Implementation of the Communication of the European Commission on “E-Skills for the 21St Century” Or in Short "Eskills21"
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EEVVAALLUUAATTIIOONN OOFF TTHHEE IIMMPPLLEEMMEENNTTAATTIIOONN OOFF TTHHEE CCOOMMMMUUNNIICCAATTIIOONN OOFF TTHHEE EEUURROOPPEEAANN CCOOMMMMIISSSSIIOONN EE--SSKKIILLLLSS FFOORR TTHHEE 2211SSTT CCEENNTTUURRYY OCTOBER 2010 Authors TOBIAS HÜSING WERNER B. KORTE Prepared for the European Commission and the European e-Skills Steering Committee empirica Gesellschaft für Kommunikations- und Technologieforschung mbH, Bonn, Germany About this document This document is the final deliverable of the study Evaluation of the Implementation of the Communication of the European Commission on “e-Skills for the 21st Century” or in short "eSkills21". Disclaimer The views expressed in this report are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Commission. Neither the European Commission nor any person acting on behalf of the Commission is responsible for the information provided in this document. About empirica GmbH empirica is an internationally active research and consulting firm concentrating on concept development, the application and development of new information and communication technology and the information society. The institute has a permanent staff from a range of disciplines, including economic, social and political sciences, IT engineering and computer science. This mix of qualifications combined with a well established network of international partners allows easy formation of interdisciplinary and international teams well tuned to study implications of the information society for citizens, businesses and governments. Contact For further information, please contact: empirica Gesellschaft für Kommunikations- und Technologieforschung mbH Oxfordstr. 2 53111 Bonn Germany Tel: (49-228) 98530-0 * e-Mail: [email protected] * Web: www.empirica.com Bonn, October 2010 2 Acknowledgements The study would not have been possible without the support of our National Correspondents in the different EU member states whose contributions are gratefully acknowledge herewith. We would like to thank Gérard Valenduc, Vesselin Spiridonov, Nick Amanatidis, Jiri Pytelka, Casper Markussen, Tarmo Kalvet, Pille Vengerfeldt-Pruulmann, Manon van Leeuwen, Reima Suomi, Gyorgy Lengyel, Isabelle Jeffares, Elisabeth Schmid, Auste Kieskiene, Arnis Gulbis, Brian Restall, Barbera van den Berg, Adam Turowiec, Marta Marques, Doinita Ariton, Vasja Vehovar, Tomas Sabol, Radoslav Delina and Richard Warren and the numerous experts at the national governments, universities and other institutions from all Member States and further countries for their support and contributions. On behalf of the European Commission, empirica would like to thank the members of the European e- Skills Steering Committee: Séverine Waterbley (Belgium); Orlin Kouzov (Bulgaria); Kyriaki Pantziarou- Therapontos (Cyprus), Blanka Hasova and Jan Král (Czech Republic); Gunther Grathwohl (Germany); Jesper Fejerskov, Michael Bach Petersen and Nicholas Falck Lund (Denmark); Ene Koitla (Estonia); Jouni Kangasniemi and Reijo Aholainen (Finland); Claude Reynié (France); Orsolya Téglassy and Gabriella Simor (Hungary); Angelo Giarletta (Italy); Ricardas Totoraitis (Lithunia); Franck Leprévost and Jean-Paul Zens (Luxembourg); Santa Sipola (Latvia); Daniela Busuttil Dougall (Malta); Ronald Verbeeck (The Netherlands); João Vasconcelos, Ana Cristina Neves and Margarida Almeida Ribeiro (Portugal); Andrei Savulescu (Romania); Thomas Nordling (Sweden); Simona Kraij Zatier (Slovenia); Nigel Payne (United Kingdom); Genc Radivocka (Albania); TomislavVracic (Croatia); Dov Winer (Israel); Jan vom Brocke (Liechtenstein); Abazovic Dejan (Montenegro); John Engstrom (Norway); Nebojša Vasiljevic (Serbia) and Ercan Boyar (Turkey) who have provided great support in providing information on sources, validating and commenting interim results and versions of the study report. empirica would like to thank André Richier, European Commission, DG Enterprise and Industry (ICT for Competitiveness and Industrial Innovation), Anna Maria Sansoni, European Commission, DG Information Society and Media, Godelieve van den Brande and Richard Deiss, European Commission, DG Education and Culture and Manuel Hubert, European Commission, DG Employment, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities for their continuous support. Responsibility for the contents of this report however, lies solely with the authors. Werner B. Korte and Tobias Hüsing 3 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Objective: Evaluating This study has been commissioned by the European Commission (DG the implementation of Enterprise and Industry) with the objective to perform an evaluation of the the Communication implementation of the Communication of the European Commission on “e- on “e-Skills for the Skills for the 21st Century: Fostering Competitiveness, Growth and Jobs” 21st Century” which was adopted on 7 September 2007. The main objectives as specified in the service contract were: - Evaluating the efficiency and effectiveness of the implementation of the Communication in the different Member States and at European level and the relevance of the EU e-skills agenda; - Evaluating the results produced so far including policies, initiatives and further activities by Member States, stakeholders (e.g. Industry, and especially the ICT industry, associations, employer associations, trade unions etc.) and the European Commission; - Evaluating how efficiently the activities have been implemented in terms of organisation, management and interactions with stakeholders; - Formulating recommendations on how the implementation of a long term e-skills agenda may be improved and/or suggest alternative actions or instruments. The study addressed national and European policies, initiatives and activities; multi-stakeholder partnerships of industry, associations, training organisations, trade unions, and other actors and further activities. It included initiatives with respect to formal and industry-based education and dealt with e-skills which include “ICT user skills” (in particular digital literacy of citizens) and “ICT practitioner skills” and "e-business skills". Insufficient digital The study has been carried out against the background of an increasing lack literacy level among of e-skills in the European workforce resulting in a growing shortage of citizens is a barrier highly qualified ICT practitioners on the one hand and still insufficient digital to growth and literacy levels among workers and citizens in many countries which is employment acting as a barrier to economic growth, competitiveness and employment in these countries on the other. e-Skills shortages will A clear message is that the number of ICT practitioners in Europe has result in an excess been growing over the past decades and will continue to grow in the demand of 384.000 future in spite of the current crisis. There has been a steady increase in the ICT practitioners number of ICT practitioners from 2.25 million in 1995 to 4.26 million in 2008 in 2015 in the EU15, which is almost a doubling in slightly more than a decade. And there is no indication that this trend will change. However, the interest in ICT careers among young Europeans seems to be diminishing in Europe. The number of computer science graduates was growing in the past, but has been in continuous decline in Europe since 2005. Today, European Universities produce fewer than 150,000 computer science graduates every year. The tendency is negative and showing a trend towards further declines. The effect of the decline in the number of entrants to the ICT workforce is intensified in Europe by an increasing number of exits as ICT 4 practitioners leave the workforce. Forecasts suggest that in a "back to normal" scenario the excess demand for ICT practitioners in the EU27 will reach 384,000 by 2015. In a "turbo knowledge economy" scenario this will even reach 669,000. Even in a "stagnation" scenario, demand will exceed supply in the EU27. This amounts to a shortage of either 8% or 13% respectively in Europe. The main conclusion is that industry desperately needs highly skilled ICT practitioners and Europe needs more young people to become ICT practitioners to supply future increases in demand. 198 million European In line with the rise in Internet use in Europe, more and more Europeans are citizens still do not acquiring basic digital skills. This is good news. However, and although the have ICT user skills efforts under the i2010 strategy continued to pay off in recent years, when it comes to the increase of regular Internet use and the development of ICT user skills and digital literacy among the population it needs to be noted that around 198 million European citizens1 still do not have any ICT user skills and are some distance away from being digitally literate. There is still some way to go especially with respect to the need to continue with eInclusion efforts and in those for disadvantaged regions. The “Europe’s Digital Competitiveness Report 2010” raises these issues when stating that the upcoming "Digital Agenda" will have to tackle these and other important challenges to ensure that all European citizens can actively participate in the information society. Different starting With the adoption in 2007 of the Communication on "e-Skills for the 21st points for Member Century" by the European Commission and the Council Conclusions the States at the time of Member States have committed themselves to the development of long- adoption of the term national e-skills strategies. Communication It was recognised already at this time that some Member States had