Análisis sistemático de políticas y programas dirigidos al desarrollo de habilidades digitales en estudiantes y trabajadores en Colombia y el mundo
Thesis
The entire population requires a combination of digital skills to make proper use of technology, in life and at work. According to the OECD, by 2019 only 31% of adults globally had sufficient skills to solve complex problems in digital environments. Faced with this situation, it is necessary to review the education and training systems for this type of skills, so that people can participate actively in society, better exploit the possibilities of learning in the digital environment and improve work performance, which will translate into better economic performance and incentives for the diffusion of technology. (OECD, 2019). Although the literature insists on the importance of digital skills, there still does not seem to be a consensus on the definition and which are the most required. According to the results of the first phase of this project, the evolution of the concept of digital skills comes from the so-called 21st century skills, the digital skills of the 21st century and later, after the recognition of technology and the digital in the fields educational, work and life itself, the concept of digital skills was coined (CPC & LEE, 2021). Taking this evolution into account, although evidence has been found that demonstrates the importance of cognitive skills associated with digital literacy, arithmetic and problem solving in digital environments, there is also complementary evidence that shows that other types of transversal skills such as thinking critical, creativity and teamwork are essential to face the challenges of digitization processes. (OECD, 2019) Based on the above, and based on the work carried out by Scheerder, Van Deursen, & Van Dijk, (2017), it was found that digital skills can be grouped into seven domains, as follows: (I) technical skills, (II) literacy skills of information, (III) communication skills and (IV) collaboration, (V) critical thinking skills, (VI) creativity skills and (VII) problem solving. Likewise, according to the International Telecommunications Union, these are classified into three levels: basic, intermediate and advanced. Taking into account this conceptual base and attending to the needs to improve the government's programmatic offer for the development of digital skills in Colombia, both in students and in workers, this second phase of the project aims to elaborate a systematic comparative analysis of policies and programs aimed at developing digital skills in students and workers in Colombia and the world. To develop this work, policies and programs of 6 countries in Asia, Europe and Latin America were analyzed. The selection of countries was carried out based on the ranking of digital skills found in the Global Competitiveness Index 2020 (IGC) of the World Economic Forum (WEF). Based on the review of documents and seeking to make the analysis comparable between countries, the selected cases were Singapore, Israel, Finland and Sweden, Chile and Colombia. To prepare the analysis of both policies and programs, some categories were selected based on previous work related to comparative analyzes of strategies and programs for the development of 21st century skills. In this sense, the categories used for the comparison of experiences, interventions, and programs in this study were: objective, target population, type of skills identified, level of skills identified, and implementation characteristics. For policy analysis, an additional category was included, related to the use and appropriation of the concept of digital skills. As a complement to the above, this work elaborated a comparative analysis of four cases of programs for the development of digital skills in Colombia, India, Spain and England. These cases have an impact and results evaluation, and therefore allowed to identify causal relationships between interventions, as well as the level of satisfaction and new knowledge of the beneficiaries, which can be informative for the future design of policies and programs. Once the analysis was carried out, the main findings were: i) in several policies the differentiation between the concept of competencies and skills is not clear and sometimes they are used indistinctly; i) all the programs analyzed agree that training in digital skills is essential for a successful insertion in the world of work; ii) in less developed countries such as Colombia, there are still limitations to the full development of programs such as internet connectivity.
