Stimulating interest in IT among young people in Europe

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Stimulating interest in IT among young people in
Europe

• Alexa Joyce
• European Schoolnet

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Stimulating interest in IT among young people in
Europe

• Falling interest but rising use
• Influencing factors on young peoples interest in
  IT
• EU and national actions in the field of education
• Multi-stakeholder example e-Skills career portal
• Next steps

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Falling interest but rising use

• Paradox young people have falling interest in
  maths, science and technology in general
• Low interest in IT careers, particularly among
  girls
• Yet young people are keen users of IT tools
• IT consumers
• Majority use a blog, Facebook or MySpace account,
  or other IT tool regularly (particularly girls)
• Majority play computer games in some form
• Now spend more time on YouTube than watching TV

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Factors influencing students in IT interest and
career choice
Formal
Informal
Rolemodels
Parents
Peers
Teachers
Careerguidance
Student
Culture
Leisureuse of IT
SchoolIT facilities
Curriculum
eConfidence
Perceptionof IT
Pedagogicaluse of IT
Gender
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Multitude of actions in public sector
These initiatives are all supporting a
transformationof education, using technology as
a pedagogical tool.
But we play catch up with IT sector new
products and services arrive thick and fast!
Need for all stakeholders to cooperate to
improvedigital literacy, from young children
upwards.
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e-Skills career portal

• New initiative portal launching today!
• e-Skills Industry Leadership Board driving
  multi-stakeholder approach
• Private companies in IT
• Organisations offering IT training and
  certification
• Education sector
• European Commission closely linked

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e-Skills career portal aims and goals

• Offer a portal on IT skills targeting
• Students at secondary and tertiary level
• Early career IT professionals
• Educators
• IT stakeholders companies, EU level actors, etc.

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e-Skills career portal aims and goals

• Provide a range of relevant information and
  services
• Interviews, career profiles, self-tests
• News, publications, surveys, etc.
• Competitions for young people (digital
  creativity)
• Community tools to network stakeholders and
  actors
• Bring together results from as many initiatives
  as possible

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View the portal

• Visit http//eskills.eun.org

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Next steps

• Bring new partners into the initiative
• Continuous content updating and additions
• Dissemination actions for young people, first
  career of the month event
• Finalising of roadmap and planning for future
  developments
• Interoperability

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What else is needed?

• Focus on teachers
• Update skill sets
• Enhance mechanism to ensure up to date
  technologies
• Enable schools to take advantage of community
  learning opportunities
• Support students
• Values-based curricular content
• Role models, authentic learning contexts
• Research on ICT perception
• Favour digital media over IT in communication
• Structural changes
• More multi-stakeholder approaches
• View schools as community learning hubs and
  facilities
• Make inter-school cooperation fundamental in
  approach

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e-Skills portal http//eskills.eun.orgJoin
partnershiphttp//eskills.eun.org/web/guest/partn
ership
Thank you!

• Contact alexa.joyce_at_eun.org European Schoolnet
  www.eun.org