Regional Director highlights investment of half a million Euros in Digital Skills Workshops
The Regional Director for Science and Technology highlighted in Ponta Delgada the Regional Government's investment of more than half a million Euros in Digital Skills Workshops "aimed at citizens of different age groups."
Bruno Pacheco revealed that there are currently 21 Digital Skills Workshops, "where 153 training actions take place, involving more than 3,250 trainees."
Ensuring digital literacy and inclusion for the full exercise of citizenship, fostering professional reorientation towards information and communication technologies, and stimulating and reinforcing digital skills in adult education and lifelong learning, including basic and advanced skills, are some of the goals pointed out by the Regional Director.
Bruno Pacheco spoke at the opening session of the 6th Iberian Conference on Innovation in Education with Information and Communication Technologies (ieTIC2020). The event brings together a hundred education professionals from Portugal and Spain working in different educational levels to discuss topics such as educational innovation and the integration of digital technologies into new methodological contexts, from early childhood education to university education.
In his speech, the Regional Director mentioned that, under the PROTIC initiative, created in 2018, the Government also launched a line of financing for the acquisition of adapted ICT equipment and software by citizens with disabilities and the institutions working in this area. With an allocation of more than 120 thousand Euros, this measure has already covered more than one hundred citizens.
Bruno Pacheco considered that digital skills are “the driving force of the digital transformation of societies” insofar as they “offer new possibilities by using information and communication technologies and the available digital resources to respond to an increasingly demanding labour market" in these areas.
"Nowadays, our social and professional performance, our interaction with the labour world and those around us are directly linked to and dependent on our digital literacy," said the government official.
The Regional Director pointed out the Regional Government's investment in the promotion of STEAM areas (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics) in order to “ensure not only the digital inclusion of all Azoreans,” but also "the preparation of younger generations for the professions of the future." In this regard, he stressed the implementation of Programming and Robotics Clubs “in almost all regional schools, an investment over 225 thousand Euros that has already covered four hundred students."
“In order to foster the Region's growth based on the offer of competitive advantages,” Bruno Pacheco also pointed to the creation of Terceira Tech Island, which aims to create a hub for digital companies on Terceira Island. As he also emphasised, the "Code Workshop" is being implemented in all regional elementary and middle schools, “so that all children can learn programming languages, an initiative involving more than 14,300 students and more than 720 teachers.”
The Regional Director noted that digital citizenship has been “a priority” for the Government, adding that “distance learning is increasingly becoming a way of preparing more Azoreans for the future.”
In this context, he defended the importance of investing in distance learning, the so-called e-learning for “overcoming geographical barriers, creating new teaching and learning opportunities, and making education accessible to all."
The 6th Iberian Conference on Innovation in Education with Information and Communication Technologies (ieTIC2020) runs until Friday. The event is organised by the Polytechnic Institute of Bragança, the Universidad de Salamanca, the Universidad Complutense de Madrid and the Open University, with the support of the Regional Government.