eSKILLS4ALL – A DIGITAL SKILLS TOOL KIT FOR LOW SKILLED ADULTS FOCUSING ON WOMEN RE-ENTERING THE LABOUR MARKET Erasmus Project

Project Title

eSKILLS4ALL – A DIGITAL SKILLS TOOL KIT FOR LOW SKILLED ADULTS FOCUSING ON WOMEN RE-ENTERING THE LABOUR MARKET

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for adult education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2017

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: ICT – new technologies – digital competences; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses; Overcoming skills mismatches (basic/transversal)

Project Summary

All files relevant to this project including, CVs and contracts of staff member, timesheets, travel reports for all people involved, Intellectual Outputs, Quality and Dissemination reports are provided as part of the present report in the following link: http://repository.erasmusplus.website/eskills4all/ (Username: evaluator Password: Evaluator101!)

Context/Background
The eSkills4ALL project seeks to understand the digital world while it aims to update the digital skills of low digital skilled adults. These adults may face challenges as they deal with increasingly complex and diverse learning situations in a constantly changing work environment with the involvement of new technologies and a the ever changing labour market with highly technical demands for skills. Basic digital skills are essential for bridging the gap between the education and the work and achieving a better job as well as a higher salary.

Objectives
With the right skills, people are better equipped to find good-quality jobs and can fulfill their potential as confident, active citizen. If those who are long-term unemployed are to have any chance of finding quality employment, they must be given the tools to successfully adjust to this new reality, as even ‘old’ jobs now require ‘new’ skills. Therefore, our objectives were to design, develop, test, implement and disseminate an innovative online training application that will help those with low digital skills (predominantly women but not exclusive) to gain a new set of skills adequate to better their career or simply get a career.

Undertaken Activities
Europe faces a basic skills challenge. People need a minimum level of basic skills, including numeracy, literacy and basic digital skills, to access good jobs and participate fully in society. These are also the building blocks for further learning and career development.

Thus, the consortium decided to investigate the current scene of each partner country to identify the current needs (IO1). 2 surveys were conducted, one with 5 employers from each country to conclude the skills they need their staff to have, and then from this we created a second survey.

From this research, we concluded 28 essential digital competencies that were the selected and divided into five categories: Information and Data Literacy, Digital Content Creation, Communication and Collaboration, Safety and Problem Solving (See Tree Structure). These 5 modules were divided between the partners who identified the Module Title, Main Objective, 3 Topics, Learning Outcomes and Employability/Soft skills and who then wrote the content and created the questions.

We also developed 6 Open Badges. 1 per Module and a final eSkills4All Expert badge if you get all 5 badges. To gain a badge, you must get 70% or above in the multiplier questions test. Through this process, Open Badges can be turned into new collaborations, jobs, internships, and richer connections between lifelong learners.

Our platform (https://academy.eskills4all.eu/) was then built and is available in 4 European languages; English, French, Greek and Romanian. It has been tested by all partners, pilot tested by our direct target group in all partner languages and used by many to gain badges already. The feedback has been extremely positive, and it has resulted in Emphasys in Cyprus and WIDE in Luxembourg, setting up drop in centres for those who have questions about preparing a CV, practice their soft skills etc.

We also created an Up-skilling Handbook for the target group and the organisers and includes a:
– Description of the project
– Description of the eSKILLS Training Programme
– Curriculum of be covered 
– Outline and schedule of on-line and in-house training/HUBS in Cyprus and Lux.
– Practical Arrangements: Dissemination, Venue, schedule of training, registration procedures etc. 
– Registration and participation procedures: on-line registration, selection of courses, time schedule, participation requirements etc.
– Assessment and validation procedures: self and external evaluation, screening test prior, during and after participation in the programme, certification etc. 
– Initial instructions for the programme
-Templates to run the training course

The toolkit is also translated into the 4 European languages; English, French, Greek and Romanian.

We then ran Pilots lead by CIVIC in partner countries to validate the Training course which was followed by a report of findings. We managed to do pilots with just over 100 people and each of them went very well. You can see a testimonial on our websites Homepage.

Target Group
The direct target group is adults with a focus on women (low-skilled, long-term unemployed) who will first record their current digital skills (through self-assessment), second acquire or upgrade their digital skills related to employability in order to bridge the skills gap and meet the digital needs of the labour market and third validate their new digital skills through the open badges.

The indirect target group is Adult Educators, leaders and providers of Adult Education, as all products to be developed will be provided open for use for the benefit of adults.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 302537 Eur

Project Coordinator

CIVIC COMPUTING LIMITED & Country: UK

Project Partners

• ANTENNA LTD
• Agentia pentru Dezvoltare Regionala Nord-Est
• M.K.O. CIVIS PLUS
• WOMEN IN DIGITAL INITIATIVES LUXEMBOURG ASBL
• A & A Emphasys Interactive Solutions Ltd
• EUROPEAN YOUTH4MEDIA NETWORK EV