The Digital Education Action Plan 2021 – 2027: lessons learnt and way ahead: A keynote by Georgi Dimitrov at University:Future Festival 2024.
The Digital Education Action Plan 2021 – 2027 (DEAP) is a policy initiative of the European Commission that sets out a common vision of high-quality, inclusive, and accessible digital education in Europe and aims to support Member States and educational institutions in adapting education and training systems to the demands and opportunities of the digital age. This keynote will outline the current achievements of the DEAP, as well as its upcoming milestones that aim to shape a resilient and future-oriented Higher Education landscape in Europe. It will also address the review of the Action Plan which was launched in April 2024 and which gives opportunity for stakeholders to shape the next phase of its implementation, also in view of the future Commission mandate.
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Under the motto “Tales of Tomorrow“ the fourth edition of the University:Future Festival (U:FF) took place from 5 to 7 June. The U:FF is the largest event on the (digital) future of academic education. Topics include AI, future skills, didactics and strategy processes.
The U:FF 2024 was hybrid: the entire content of the programme could be fully experienced online. At the same time, stages in Berlin, Bochum, Heilbronn, Leipzig and Nuremberg allowed for on-site encounters. The programme was largely based on submissions from our communities. It was rounded off by outstanding VIP speakers. The festival was held bilingually in German and English.
Visitors enjoyed a varied and inspiring programme with over 300 contributions from more than 600 speakers!
The University:Future Festival 2024 was organised by the Hochschulforum Digitalisierung and the Stiftung Innovation in der Hochschullehre. It was supported by the Stifterverband. More info: https://festival.hfd.digital/en/
[Music] [Music] all right so thank you thank you Zach and um good afternoon um to everyone here and good afternoon to everyone who is uh who is online um well first of all um many thanks to H Forum digital uh and to um theand to BF and to the inov in the for the invitation um it’s um it’s a it’s a great honor to be here for the 10th year anniversary of the hul Forum digitalizer so well done to you for you know 20 more 30 more whatever you can manage um and um I will speak today a little bit about um the work that we do at the European level and I can already um uh appreciate a lot the fact that you are first here or online and that you’re listening to that because it is a little bit further from the higher education area specifically but I will try to make it relevant for you and secondly of course it’s 5:00 in the evening so maybe some of you want to have a drink and this I understand completely but U bear with me so I hope that you will find it useful to some to some extent at least so I will talk about the work that I lead at the European level which is the uh European uh digital education action plan and I would like to share with you some uh some Reflections on what we have learned from the work so far and maybe some of the thoughts that will guide us in the in the next uh stage now um the motto of this event is uh Tales of tomorrow and um every compelling tale has some sort of conflicts and nowadays we we call them challenges because we prefer to to talk uh you know in this uh in this way uh but effectively there is um just the same old tension that you have a problem to solve and that um you are doing whatever you can uh to mobilize your stakeholders and this is exactly I think what is happening here so first of all congratulations for the format on on on managing this also in this quite uh um impressive location but also on the people that you have brought together and by way of analogy I would say this is also what we did when we first uh set up the digital education action plan which is a um uh Flagship policy on digital education uh if I may add um the the first one that has um attempted to create a digital education policy over a long term uh to integrate the different measures at EU level and this is this is why also you see this very long-term duration which is 21 and 27 it’s not because we can predict the future it’s because this is the financial cycle of the European Union and the European Union as you know is a little bit like a like a big tanker in a way so it has a long uh way to to to to move but when it decides to go somewhere then it normally focuses um its um priorities of a longer term and um we have developed this action plan back in 2020 which was a completely different time and when the challenges that we have had were of completely different nature and um I have uh tried to um perhaps think first of all before I tell you a bit more about the action plan I I wanted to share with you some of the reflections we have when it comes to higher education and which are probably a little bit more specific for for you um first of all I think it is very very fair to say that that um it is very challenging to adapt the digital transformation to uh to education and also the universities and high higher education institutions um they really need to keep uh Pace with the very rapid acceleration of of um digital in Europe and this is you can observe everywhere and uh this involves not only putting you know new digital tools um but also uh The Continuous maintenance or the upgrade of technology in infrastructure it also now includes a lot of um new problems such as the well not so new but more novel problems such as cyber security uh interoperability scalability of solutions and of course performance and um I think that what we saw through Co is how important that is so that was a lesson number one then um very important and someone spoke earlier today in a panel which I was looking at uh from there um about the the notion that uh when it comes to digital skills there is more that higher education can do still and I will come back to that when I show you the picture of digital skills today in Europe I’ll show you some figures so that you see that but my point here is that the universities have a very important role when it comes to the development of digital skills of course now you can apply this to the AI discussion that all of us are having but um both students and also Educators require efficient digital literacy to manage and this is not always given and um I would also add a caveat that uh some of the problem of course comes from much earlier so it’s not a problem at the higher education level only but it stems from from much earlier and I’ll say something to this later on now there is of course the very important and big problem of the funding which is um I mean as long as I have been involved in higher education or in education and um um Innovation policy that has always been the issue of funding shortfalls and this uh is a problem which has been again exacerbated by the pandemic and I think that here in Germany which I also know a little bit um from my personal experience I think this problem is also existing so there is a um funding shortage when it comes to uh promoting online learning or uh linking this to research activities and so there is a continuous need for this type of um uh funding as well and then I want to to to make one more Point um on the issue of inclusivity and equality um which is a very important one for societal um um balance and uh where we still see continuously uh a need for greater diversity for greater gender equality in higher education with a persistent under under representation of specific um disadvantage groups and and parts of the of the population and um also we should not forget that the ability of people to participate in digital education sometimes is completely contingent on um their access and the reality is that um access is not uh is not uh Universal in the European Union so there is a lot of work that we we need to still do at the level of the basics so let me let me mention now a bit on the on the question how we through the digital education action plan have addressed uh addressed some of it first of all I would like you to remember just two parts about this this um very high level action plan and this is the the the two main objectives and if you would manage to do that I would be very very happy the first big very long-term objective is to really support the development of an ecosystem um a digital education ecosystem which is uh performing and which provides for Access and I imagine this not differently from the notion of the University where everybody can go to if you’re if you’re handicapped you can even um you know have the specific entry you have all the facilities which you need you have a space and it needs to be a space equipped and adapted to the process of the learning this is a big task in itself because it involves questions around infrastructure digital tools platforms digital education content and all of this is a very expensive investment but it needs to be done and it is something where we cannot compromise because it is about access and if education is a human right then access to education in digital terms should also be treated like this then the other big priority we have is the question of enhancing digital skills I spoke about it extremely important in terms of the big priorities uh at the European level but also for uh includ inclusion and for just participating in society so I think that this um is something that we like to refer nowadays as the fourth basic skill next to reading literacy and math and this uh type of basic digital skills we need to establish as early as possible throughout the different uh the different curricula we also um make a very important point of getting and keeping the different actors of the digital education ecosystem together together let’s not forget that this is an ecosystem which is fairly new so comparatively speaking to the education system we’re talking about the last decade or so maybe a little bit more so it is very important to bring these different actors together and this is something which we do through the digital education Hub and I will say something about it a little bit later um I said only two things um to remember um for those of you who are interested I have I I do have um details but I would not um elaborate uh on them right now because you can access the different um actions of the digital education action plan I just say that there is a number of specific policy measures which we and the uh the commission and the member states the 27 member states discuss and agree on and there are some instruments here where uh the different member states commit to and there is also a number of specific actions um related to the development of connectivity which we fund digital education content where we develop quality standards for new type of digital education content together with stakeholders or um one of the successful recently more successful uh measures is um the ethical guidelines on uh the use of AI and data in Education and Training and you can guess why this is so relevant today I I am not going to say too too much on it um same uh same logic applies on the second priority we are um uh working on the development of a European digital skills certificate which would in a way provide some sort of certification for digital skills in the same way you know this from the languages so A1 A2 and so on the the type of classification we also have uh specific measures to support mobility and trainy ships uh so this is something which is relevant for higher education Mobility so it’s a more specialized way to go um abroad through erasmos and to develop more digital skills and these are some of the examples that um um I have listed here under the um uh second priority I want to um mention just a few figures here so that you you um um get um a grasp a bit of the let’s say overall um situation still uh in terms of the the different uh benchmarks that we that we use uh the first um the first thing I would like to mention is that in a in a recent um um work that we have done together with the member states and which the member states have agreed on and I’m sorry for the very long title which is Council recommendation on the key enabling factors for successful digital Education and Training so this is some of the peculiarities of our job that we have to be extremely specific sometimes um we have listed uh a couple of data points which I think are very pertinent um and you can understand immediately probably why this is such an important issue still so first um first point that you can see here is that um only onethird of um students attend schools which have um strategies on how to use digital in um in their teaching and learning processes only only one third have this explicitly only four out of 10 teachers feel confident to use digital school uh digital Tools in their teaching and learning practice and one of the one of the major um insights which I which I really want to point to you to because one of the countries which has been been investigated is in fact the one that we’re in right now is this here which says that only 2 to 15% of the schools audited by the European Court of Auditors so this is something like the reof in Germany so it looks at where money is being spent at the European level so only 2 to 15% of the schools uh of the investigated six countries one of which is is is Germany have gigabit connectivity access and um this means effectively that all of you including me who have a uh probably like a 4G or 5G phone we have better connectivity than a lot of schools in those countries and um if you think about it for a moment um it’s not ideal and also it explains why you have problems further you know impacting also the higher education we have proposed and the member states have agreed last November after quite intensive negotiations uh because let me remind you that um the the issue of education is dealt with at the European commission level in the same way the issue of education is dealt with in Germany by the lenda I’m I’m just giving you this analogy it’s a little bit more complicated than that but it’s more or less the same so it’s not easy to to to to to put it simply but still the member states have agreed upon the proposal of the commission to uh inter Alia develop national strategies to work more closely between the different departments because in order to create ecosystems you need infrastructure you need Finance people you cannot do this out of your education Ministry no matter how good you are and um you um you need to work with the private sector as well together and we have um also um managed to um negotiate a few other uh measures which the member states have agreed and will be implementing in in the next um a few years a second policy work which I want to mention very briefly is on digital skills and competences why this is such an important thing because you may think oh this is such an old you know old like alav Vine uh it’s it’s really a very important topic which has been um neglected for a very very long time and again um one third of the students of 15 years so it’s 14 to 15 years old onethird of them are rated as Underachievers in digital skills and the tests which are applied are not very Advanced so we are talking here about a very significant part of the school population which uh really underperforms um and has uh lacks basic digital skills at the European level a very um revealing statistics which unfortunately is not changing a lot over time or at least in the in the time I’m following this in the last four or five years is this one which is that it is only around half of the population and here we are talking about 16 to 74 years old which have basic digital skills again the the Baseline to to say you have that is relatively low the test has been developed quite some time ago so we’re not talking about some very Advanced competences here and um I want to just say two things about it first we are very far away from our own Target which the member states have agreed which is 80% um so we are really V very far away from it and the second is that inclusively as digitalization moves into every aspect of life including participation in social life and citizenship this becomes an exclusion um um point so it is very important to not forget that no matter how important of course all the technological Revolution is with with AI and other things we really need to make sure that we don’t leave um a very big part of the population um outside and um on the question of gender um the the the statistics is um um basically it’s a huge imbalance when it comes to the ICT professions and um even though some countries have very high levels of female graduates first of all they don’t always manage to go into the profession and then secondly this does not apply to the majority of countries which still have very low uh ICT graduates um in terms of the female population and the result is that um well 81% of the ICT professionals are are male with all the conclusions this has and with all let’s say the results you can see in terms of who programs What in in what way so um again after quite an intensive negotiation with the member states last year we we have as part of the the digital education action plan we have um agreed that the member states will um develop um specific um instruments such as um let’s say integrate more informatics into um education or um start as early as possible in the provision of digital skills meaning that they would also teach the Logics and the the computational thinking even without screens because we know that this is not always perhaps welcome especially for the younger um children but that there would be a Continuum and also more importantly there would be some sort of assessment and followup because again this is not not yet there it is very difficult for for um a person like let’s say me to to demonstrate and to to um provide you evidence of what my digital skills are so I’m just taking myself as an example I could take a student as well I want to I want to mention uh on the way um um the European digital education Hub where also the shft of aband and the H Forum digitalizer are uh partners and I want to mention it because I think it’s one of the um very interesting activities that we have set out um in 2021 to uh to do and um this is a flagship uh to bring together a community working on digital education and to provide space for uh stakeholders from different sectors to come together and this has turned into something like 4,000 plus um practitioners today from importantly all the different sectors so it involves a very heavy part on higher education but it does have also schools or vocational education and training and um it has uh the at least I would say the ambition that uh it works in an agile manner so it is much more demand driven and fast uh it includes um activ such as um workshops ask me anything sessions accelerator programs and some mentoring and also the idea is to bring in thematic work groups people who are specialists in a certain field and can work out relatively fast uh specific Solutions so not to wait um for too long um um um let’s say results and um to um Empower actually the people who are working on the ground and I think that you are also um welcome to if you if you’re interested to join this community of practice one example how this could be relevant for higher education is um the uh interoperability frame framework which we have uh recently seen being launched in the digital education Hub um which consists of around 140 higher education stakeholders and it experts with um different let’s say background uh who collaborates together to address several infrastructural challenges uh which prevent higher education institutions from working better together I mean this could be very simple things like exchanging the diploma of a student uh or the the record rather of a student who wants to move from University of Berlin to let’s say University of lublana I’m just I’m just saying like this it can go into much more complicated questions such as how is it that you can cooperate more effectively in the European University alliances which is a uh initiative that the commission launched a few years ago to bring much deeper integration in the European high education landscape and um it relates to things like virtual Mobility joint programs joint courses so here there is a core group of around 20 experts from the higher education domain and also um organizations um from the European University Foundation many universities or uh University alliances and together they are developing what hopefully will be a higher education interoperability framework um which um we hope because this is a longer term process being being related to standardization which hope will also lay a little bit down the foundation for a eu-wide type of Standards on uh that exchange for higher education systems um so this is a very specific example of how such an activity works and we expect um later this year to see the results of this um framework in place this is just the timeline of the um initiative which shows you when it started in in January and then we expect the result more or less in in February it’s not exactly a Sprint but it it needs a little bit of time so on the other hand and I think it’s a great example of um how different actors work together at the European level I I want to finish with um just um um a reference to the fact of the way forward because I I mentioned some lessons learned uh I mentioned some Reflections and I want to mention also the way forward in this moment we are at a very important stage that we are launching our um evaluation of what we have done in the last three years so what you heard from me is also a little bit part of my reflection uh my personal experience with it and um we uh have round about three more years to go and we really want to look at what worked well what worked less well and then see what we completely missed and um we have launched uh for this last month um actually it’s end of April so it’s a bit more we launched um the entire process and we are inviting stakeholders and here I would like to extend this invitation to you as well we are inviting in stakeholders to share your um views and opinions ideally in a position paper um up to 1,000 words so it’s not that long and we have also um set out to organize a number of consultation events with specific sectors we already kicked it kicked this off with the business sector and all of this will follow up including the member States including the next European Parliament which will be elected in a matter of uh few days and we want to um publish the results of this including any new measures that we want to promote and uh put forward for the action plan in the second quarter of the um next year so I will finish with a call uh so you can participate in this review this is the email address if you if you would like to do so otherwise you can also of course uh find us uh on the relevant links um thank you very much for your attention [Applause] thanks a lot Gori for joining us today I’ll just put my laptop there then I can see the questions more easily join me on my left and then I can just read here oh see we have some incoming questions and if there’s more questions use this opportunity to send them quickly so let’s see yens wrote the EU was more than 10 years ago setting up a very interesting collaborative publication on the future of Education 2030 with the facilitation of jrc in sevia lots of stakeholders involvement and he was wondering whether this amazing joint effort could be repeated given that there is so much technological Dynamic nowadays why is the Ed not taking care of something like that so the European collaboration platform yeah yeah I mean um the Ed is the European digital education Hub so thanks yans for shout for the shout out uh I will say that um it’s not really up to the commission what the Hub will decide to do so everyone can kick off an idea and just do it that’s the whole point of the community um so you’re welcome also to initiate this yens but more on the question of the JC and what happened in the past because JC stands for a part of the European commission and you you are excused if you don’t know that but it’s the it’s the research House of the European commission it’s a huge body with a lot of foresight uh Specialists it runs some of the uh research activities incl including the nuclear activities um nuclear uh research activities of the commission so very strong scientific uh expertise and yes they did that and actually they are working together with us uh currently on some of the implications of the uh recent uh AI act uh the the recent digital uh legislation which has a big impact on Education and Training I don’t want to scare anybody here by saying that I I mean I do think that the implications will be at least as big as gdpr they might be even big bigger and we need to be better prepared for that so we are not doing this let’s say out of the blue right now what will be the education in the future but we are turning more as to what do we have as the Baseline what is also the regulations which are uh agreed by the member states and how that affects education and the JC is doing that with us together we have another question by Anna Hall as a student I really want to see maron’s vision of a European University in place right now there are still so many obstacles how can you push that interoperability is that oh that interoperability is really working for me as a student uh wow thank you for the for thank you for the question so I think the the reason behind we um we set out to work on interoperability at the EU level and working also on the domain of Education already tells you that we believe this is an extremely important point I can tell you that it’s not the most uh maybe natural thing for um politicians to deal with but we believe it’s a very important point it helps a lot um uh the problems of the student to to solve the problem of the student and what I presented briefly here in terms of this framework I hope will um help the universities to just link better together and contribute to to what what the the questioner um has has asked I of course you know cannot provide a guarantee for that but we have a commitment to work on it for sure now in my introduction I said you’ve worked in a startup you’ve worked in large corporation now in the EU um how big is the difference and what is needed to really push forward you know um great ideas around education that’s a great question that’s yours no yes okay um so I I will say that there is not much similarity at all um I worked in a very small company very small startup in the tech field um and then in a big Corporation I think there is one big similarity and uh it comes back to if you if you allow me to to a French word to to actually to two French words which funnily enough you know they come from the French language and at the same time they cannot mean more different things one is the word bureaucrat the other word is entrepreneur both of them come from the French language this is already very I would say interesting in itself if you’re interested in languages like me but why I’m saying it is because if you have an entrepreneurial attitude um you can actually do things everywhere no matter how big the organization is and this is maybe the only thing that I would say is kind of similar other than this there is of course a huge level of responsibility that you you have to take for for bigger things if you work in a big organization and you need to to put some some different skills of course in in your in in your pocket in your portfolio um because also the machine is just much much bigger but if you have a little bit of that that you can actually do a little bit yourself and you you are confident about this and I think this is helpful for everyone then probably I think it’s probably a helpful skill wherever you are in which organization if you’re proactive if you learn how to work the system and approach it Entre IAL you’re able to change things exactly thanks a lot for doing that on our behalf in the European commission diov thank you