News

In its last Friday’s press release (07.09.2007) on the recent report named “E-skills for the 21^st century: fostering competitiveness, growth and jobs”, the Commission emphasized the importance for Europe to adopt a long-term agenda on e-skills.



Quoting some well-known difficulties encountered by the IT sector in Europe such as lack of EU-wide approach, the skills shortage, the rising gap between formal and industry-based education and the persistence of the digital illiteracy, the Commission proposes Member States to base their e-skills agenda on five major topics. These are longer term cooperation, human resources investment, attractiveness, employability and e-inclusion as well as lifelong acquisition of e-skills.



In addition, the Commission will support the implementation of such measures by concentrating on five action lines at the European level. These activities will be promoting long-term cooperation and monitoring progress, developing supporting actions and tools, raising awareness of e-skills, fostering employability and social inclusion and promoting better and greater use of e-learning.



As part of the implementation program, the EU Commission has recently launched a call for tender regarding the impact of global sourcing on e-skills in Europe. Results of the study worth some 300’000 € are to be expected by the end of 2008.