Angela Andersson, Seconded National Expert from
Sweden at the Directorate-General for Education
and Culture (European Commission) was the
speaker for working group Education, training and
certification. She spoke about her Directorate’s new
online platform EPALE that responds to the efforts
by DG Education and Culture to increase the impact
and recognition of adult education for growth and
inclusion in Europe. The platform is also a way to
recognise publicly the need for retraining and upskilling of adults as one way to fight unemployment.
A. Andersson invited members of telecentres and
those present to join the platform.
Renata Danieliene, Deputy Director at the
Information Technologies Institute in Lithuania
introduced the themes for the working group Youth
employability. She started with the good news:
employment is clearly increasing in the professional,
knowledge, service and information sectors. It
is a well-known fact that there is a persistent
mismatch between skills available and the needs of
the labour markets. At the moment there are 5.2
million unemployed young people in the EU (22.2%
unemployment rate among young people) and even
more youngsters (7.5 million), between the ages of
15 and 24 are currently in the so-called NEET group
(neither in education nor in employment).
The gap between the countries with the highest
and the lowest jobless rates for young people
remains extremely high. In her view the potential of
job mobility in the EU is thus enormous and it could
help tackle youth unemployment. She invited her
working group to answer questions such as how to
motivate people and to ensure they have the right
skills, and what are the tools to help them enter the
labour market.
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Adriana Gil-Juárez (Universitat Rovira i Virgili) and Joel Feliu
(Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona) introduced the Gender Equality
working group. They used the metaphor of the leaky pipeline to show
that girls and women are indeed underrepresented in the fields of
science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) where they drop
out of these fields in all stages of their studies and careers. In their
academic work A. Gil-Juárez and J. Feliu are exploring the various
reasons for the existence of this gender gap in STEM fields.
There is a high number of initiatives, especially in the US, that attempt to
get girls interested in coding, gaming and similar pursuits traditionally
seen as male interests. As we live in a society so dependent on science
and technology, this phenomenon is taking a wider social dimension
and leads to inequality on all levels. The speakers showed the audience
a video from a Spanish theater play “M’agrada” on theme of gender
stereotypes.
Magdalena Dimkovska from Open the Windows,
a Macedonian NGO active in the field of digital
inclusion for disabled people and active member of
Telecentre Europe, introduced the working group
Vulnerable groups at risk of exclusion by reminding
the audience that most of us take for granted that
the computer or any other device is a window into
the information world. For those that are at risk
of exclusion due to their disabilities, this window
is only made possible due to the achievements of
assistive technology. There are many challenges
for the development of this type of technology,
often related to prejudice and lack of funding or
motivation.
Working groups: Discussing good practice in digital
inclusion and empowerment
After the morning presentations, participants broke into four working groups according to the ones they
signed up for previously. The discussions and topics were preceded in each group by presentations and case
studies showcasing concrete concerns and obstacles that digital inclusion actors are facing. Participants
discussed what is needed from policy and decision makers and what they can provide in turn (expertise,
knowledge, links with the citizens, etc.).
The Unite-IT online network and database is also organised through Working Groups and TEAC14 was seen
as an excellent opportunity to get network members to meet face to face after having already interacted
online for more than a year. Some of the good practices that were mentioned are already part of the
existing online database of good practice and some of them went on to win the Unite-IT eInclusion award
in their respective categories (the Award ceremony was held in the evening of the same day). Below is a
summary of the main discussion points in each group.
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Education, Training and Certification
Moderated by Gabriela Barna (EOS, Romania)
• Ioana Crihana who presides the Romanian association of public libraries (ANBPR) - an association
with 41 branches and over 3,300 members - said that thanks to the Microsoft voucher campaign led
by Telecentre Europe many Romanian librarians offered young people the possibility to course the
Microsoft Office Specialist (MOS) certificate.
Highlights:
• Within the Latvian National Coalition for Digital Jobs, memorandums were signed with Ministries
of Education to secure funds for universities on digital skills education. A suggestion was made that
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