Meeting digital skills demand today – and tomorrow

By Emmanuel C. Ogu, Lecturer of Computer Science & Information Technology, Babcock University

The realities of the modern digital era have challenged traditional approaches to learning and skills acquisition.

Among the first consequences of COVID-19 was a shift to remote teaching and rapid uptake of educational technologies, also known as ”edtech”, all over the world.

But even now, more than two years after the outbreak of the pandemic, the careful planning needed for meaningful online learning is largely missing.

At the same time, learners are showing a growing desire to control what, where, and how they learn.

A new landscape

The pandemic has permanently refocused traditional frameworks and approaches to education. Broadly, this has demanded a new approach to curriculum design and delivery, including restructured learning assessments and educational outcomes.

In any digitally transformed environment, digital skills are crucial. Only a well-informed community or workforce can participate actively, whether through discerning consumption and use, or by contributing to the design and development of digital products and services.

Despite the advantages of distance learning, there are difficulties. Among the major issues students have faced since 2020 are the lack of effective feedback and engagement mechanisms, inadequate learning content, problems with communication channels, and insufficient preparation to cope with new teaching models.

Together, these factors have diminished the overall learning experience.

The post-pandemic digital future

Collaboration, team cohesion, self-efficacy and regulation, and digital literacy within online distance learning environments, among other skills, have emerged as key determinants to maximize learning outcomes during the pandemic.

Beyond the knowledge offered by traditional learning, character traits like courage, curiosity, mindfulness, resilience, ethics, and leadership ability, combined with digital literacy skills, will be key determinants of success in digital economies and societies beyond the pandemic.

But ensuring such success will depend on policy imperatives to drive digital transformation today.

Involving learners

The time has come to change the prevailing approach to education. Traditionally, educational administrators and regulators have made the main decisions about the structure and delivery of learning, which are then imposed on learners who are allowed little or no input.

Learners need to have a say in what they learn, how they learn and where they learn, especially at higher levels of education. To amplify their voices and enable them to influence the direction of education, learners must be involved in all the processes to design, implement, monitor, and evaluate educational policies.

Effective, responsive educational policies can help galvanise wider socio-economic progress. E-learning platforms also need to become more robust and resilient, with improved accessibility features and integrated functionalities.

Digital infrastructure requires investment, along with economic support to help learners to exploit the benefits of these platforms.

Educators and regulators should therefore start seeking a transformative, policy-supported balance and cooperation, for both teachers and learners, between the mastery of hard and soft skills. Revised policies and updated capacity-building approaches must focus on the development of competencies to better prepare today’s graduates to thrive and excel a post-pandemic digital future.

Adapted from the article ‘Learning and skills acquisition in a post-pandemic digital future’ by Emmanuel C. Ogu. Read the full article in Digital Skills Insights 2021.