Building and Preserving e-skills Knowledge Economy Conference Sofia, May 2004 Elissaveta Gourova Sofia University ‘St. Kliment Ohridski’ - CIST

Main topics The e-skills issue  For the EU and the ‘New entrants’ Building e-skills  Medium- and Longer-term prospective Preserving e-skills  The problems of ageing and mobility

E-Skills in European Policy Agenda Rapid technological changes world-wide Focus in the Lisbon process on new basic skills: IT skills Foreign languages Technological culture  e-skills vital in implementing the vision for e-Europe Entrepreneurship Social Skills

 ICT managers / leaders  ICT professionals  ICT applied skills  ICT users E-skills in EU New Members: challenges of eEurope+ Action Plan

Building e-skills Which are the prospects for middle- and longer- term supply of ICT professionals?  higher education  vocational education and training  ICT, mathematics and science in early education

Medium-term prospects: e-graduates

Hungarian case: Focus on interdisciplinary studies? Source: STAR Consortium

Vocational education and training: Polish and Estonian cases EstoniaPoland Source: ETF; Statistical Institute of Poland 11% 33%

Longer-term focus on early education ICT education - a global necessity  Computerization of schools  Educational content and teachers needs Mathematics and science in schools  Good results at wide international tests  Competitions in mathematics and informatics - a tool for building excellence?

Ageing - still a bottleneck? National studies suggest that policy attention to attract young researchers has given results:  Estonia: increase of doctoral degree holders, but too slow to meet future demands  Hungary: increase of PhD students: 44% of engineering PhD students aim at university carrier (20% - industrial research)  Poland: increase of PhD degrees awarded during the period ,but less increase in technical sciences than in medical or agricultural

The highly-skilled mobility problem

Highly-skilled mobility impacts Source: OECD (2002)

E-skills as a factor for success? How to make use of available skills and traditions? Are NEs able to play a role as ICT producers? Is there a role for NEs as suppliers of highly- skilled professionals? Who is paying the bill? How to turn mobility into advantage?

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