Digital skills policy is one of the most important issues for society and economy today. Without them, citizens and businesses cannot effectively take advantage of digital services. They are also necessary to combat the digital divide, which mainly affects the older generation, as well as to educate any risks for all citizens. Changes are needed in school and university curricula, lifelong learning programs for adults, trainings and seminars both for the public sector and for chambers and companies for their employees. The European Union, while allocating funds to accelerate digital transformation, pays significant attention to the development of digital skills, since the problem is pan-European.

Discussions about digital policy often focus only on new services, existing support measures or incentives aimed at creating a favorable climate for investment. But without enough dedicated programmers and IT professionals in general, the next steps in the digital economy risk being delayed. Citizens should also have as many skills as possible to use digital services and infrastructure. The better educated citizen users are, the less they are at risk of malicious attacks and illegal activities of third parties, and they are more demanding users, which leads to better services provided by the public and private sectors.

But what are the key elements that a national digital skills policy should include? How and by whom are the digital skills that are part of such a policy selected? How might this be related to education and the development of math and programming skills that are taught in all classes? The policy proposal should, in addition to organizing relevant thematic units, include a robust system for assessing digital competencies and a common framework for strategic planning that will concern all bodies providing education and training services. The strategy should be based on periodic national skills surveys, focusing on both the future demand for skills and the skills needs of citizens to access digital services. Thus, when developing a digital skills framework, it is important to distinguish between basic digital skills associated with the use of the Internet or mobile applications and advanced digital skills for occupations required to develop new digital technologies and new products and services, such as programming, artificial intelligence and Internet of things. A key element of digital professional skills is mathematics, especially algorithms and logic. Math literacy is an important step towards advanced digital skills.

At the international level, two organizations stand out for their contribution to digital skills policy: UNESCO and the European Commission. The UNESCO definition of digital literacy is quite broad: digital literacy is the ability to access, manage, understand, integrate, communicate, evaluate and create information safely and appropriately through digital technologies for employment, decent work and entrepreneurship. It includes skills that are often referred to variously as computer literacy, ICT (information and communication technology) literacy, information literacy, and media literacy. The European Commission has developed a more comprehensive digital skills framework, DigComp, as a research project led by all European Union (EU) member states. The UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) subsequently improved DigComp to make it suitable for more countries by creating the Global Digital Literacy Framework (DLGF). The DLGF adds two important areas: (i) basic familiarity with hardware and software, which is often taken for granted in wealthier countries, and (ii) skills related to the labor market.

While the EU DigComp and the UNESCO DLGF are a good benchmark for digital literacy and higher digital skills, the EU has also proposed a common framework for structuring the competencies required and developed by ICT professionals. [European e-Competence Framework (e-CF)]. This structure emphasizes the advanced and highly specialized skills of those involved in the use, adaptation and development of digital applications and projects. It can be used by managers and human resources departments, educational and training institutions, market participants and politicians, as well as other organizations in the public and private sectors.

The better educated citizen users are, the less they are at risk of malicious attacks and illegal actions by third parties.

The relationship between digital skills and the level of digital services and products for the general public as well as specialized user groups is clear. Skill development drives service development, in both directions.

In our country, it is important to have, first of all, interactive educational material in Greek and English and in audiovisual form in digital storage, modules for free use on the Internet by all comers, which will be produced with open standards and open software. The understanding of digital media will accelerate and become more widespread, which is essential for our future. It is necessary to formulate a national strategy for digital skills in cooperation with universities and technical education, acceptable, if possible, to all political forces. Otherwise, we will continue to waste national and Community resources without the necessary results.

* Mr. Thodoros Karunos is an NTUA Researcher.

** Mr. Petros Stephaneas is an Associate Professor at NTUA.