Digital skills learning has to become a priority in schools in order to provide kids with the needed tools to use the Internet safely, a new report says. The report is made by the Bulgarian National Center for Safer Internet and was released for the annual Safer Internet Day that the world marks on the 9th of February.
The Safer Internet Day is marked by more than 110 countries around the world. State institutions, schools, companies and non-profits take part in various activities to promote safer internet use. Every year there is a different theme and this year the topic is “Play your part for a better internet”.
Google for example is offering 2GB of free cloud storage today for users who complete the account security check-up on their Google profiles. The good news is that it doesn’t appear that the 2GB extra storage have an expiry date.
Different companies and organizations have various ways to take part in the Safer Internet Day. The Bulgarian National Center for Safer Internet published a report on the digital skills gap in children. It recommends that the learning of digital skills should become a priority in schools. There should be special policies developed by schools, in conjunction with parents and students. This will help make sure that the agreed policies will actually be helpful for students and they will want to use them.
The report goes on to recommend to the government to actively start promoting digital skills in schools and make the needed changes in order to make the learning of said skills easier and more affordable. This means that teachers should also be trained to use the new methods and get the needed digital skills themselves before they can teach.
The Bulgarian IT industry needs about 30 000 – 40 000 skilled workers right now. This number is expected to grow or at the most optimistic – stay flat in the years to come. It is why many local companies are making their own learning centers or are investing in digital training and certifications.
A similar problem is holding back the IT industry in the entire European Union with estimates of up to 1 million IT jobs needed by 2020. It is why a massive educational reform is needed, but even so it will take years before the effects of it can be felt. So this is why the IT training market is vastly expanding and we have created the global IT training marketplace Coursedot in order to make finding courses for certifications easier.
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