Citizens must be afforded every opportunity, support, and
encouragement to improve their digital competences.

There should be sufficient provision of education and training in the
market to meet demand, including through access to open digital platforms, courses or resources. In
addition, citizens must be able to shape the pace and form of their learning pathways to ensure they
can complete and benefit from the learning.

Differing learning approaches (blended, on-line, in-person), learning
styles (visual, interactive), and learning settings (classrooms, workplace) must be accommodated in
the design and delivery of education and training to reflect how people live, learn and work.

ALL DIGITAL welcomes the action announced by the EU Commission to develop a
European approach to micro-credentials. A single European approach would
greatly enable the recognition and portability of digital competence certificates issued after
shorter duration courses. For this reason, the European approach to micro-credentials must
consider the role of digital competence centres and certification organisations.

Design and delivery of education and training in digital
competences must respect cultural diversity and expression, demonstrate ethical behaviour and
not discriminate on any basis (e.g., age, race, gender, financial condition,
disability).

Such education and training must ensure equality of opportunity for both
women and men and address under-representation of women in STEM. Policy makers and providers must
consider the specific needs of disadvantaged groups (including migrants, NEET, older persons, the
low-skilled, disabled people, detainees, and LGBTQ+) and those in disadvantaged urban or rural
territories.

The design of online learning content must adhere to web accessibility
standards and principles of universal design, ensuring that senior citizens and people with
disabilities can perceive, understand, navigate, communicate, and contribute to the better learning
experience. Lifelong learning programmes in digital inclusion centres should increase the
readiness of vulnerable social groups for the new “digital by default” policy of public service
providers. The effective use of digital assistive technologies would facilitate the
social inclusion of the most vulnerable and improve their quality of life.

Digital competences are fundamental to delivering on the European Pillar of Social Rights, including the first
principle which states the right of everyone to ‘quality and inclusive education, training and
life-long learning’. Education and training in digital competences must be underpinned by quality
assurance. Providers should adhere to quality standards, guidelines, and reference
frameworks to ensure quality of content, processes and learner experience. European
digital competence frameworks (such as DigComp, DigCompEdu, e-CF, etc.) can be used in conjunction with quality assurance tools to design
courses and services without limiting experimentation and innovation, when needed.

Learning outcomes should underpin design and delivery of digital
competence education and training. Learning outcomes can support understanding and
ownership by learners; quality of assessment and results; and easier recognition of the course by
employers and institutions

DigComp: the European Digital Competence Framework should
be further established as the EU-wide framework for developing and understanding digital
competences. The European Commission should support systematic use of DigComp across EU activities
as an integral part of responding to the impact of the ‘digital transition’, including through
funding programmes and outreach to policymakers and practitioners.

ALL DIGITAL welcomes the action announced by the EU Commission to
explore the feasibility of a ‘European Digital Skills Certificate’. The eventual
‘certificate’ should support quality, common approaches and recognition of digital competence
certifications in the EU. The model should be based on DigComp and support assessment of learning
outcomes from formal, non-formal and informal learning.

ALL DIGITAL will leverage its position as an EU-wide network to play a role
in the governance and support of the model and continue to manage a
multi-stakeholder Digital Competence Certification Community of
Practice (CoP).

A coherent approach to digital competences can only be achieved by
establishing shared ways to describe and share data on digital competences.

ALL DIGITAL calls on the European Commission to develop a ‘Digital
Competences Profile’ which will act as a EU standard for describing digital
competences. The profile would set out minimum information that should be included in
course descriptions, assessments and certificates to give a clear understanding of the digital
competences in a given course.

The profile could be used in Europass, Individual Learning Accounts, ESCO and the EU
approach to micro-credentials and be used by digital competence training providers, certification
organisations and other stakeholders across the EU.

Technology should be leveraged to support the recognition and mobility of
digital competence certificates. Certification providers should use trustworthy mechanisms
(such as Europass Digital Credentials) to issue digitally signed certificates to
learners as evidence of their achievements. Such digitally signed certificates can be
easily verified by employers, education and training institutions, and stakeholders in different
countries. This will reduce paper-based administration and delays in the recognition of digital
competences.

Stakeholders from industry, society and education and training must
collaborate on the design and delivery of courses and services and build processes to ensure
timely development of relevant, holistic digital competences. ALL DIGITAL members and
digital competence stakeholders should participate in EU co-operation mechanisms, including the Pact for Skills, to represent and contribute to skills development activities
across the EU.

Digital competence development requires an ‘all-government’ approach that
includes digital competence development within employment, labour market, education and training,
social services and economic development.

Digital competences must be recognised as an integral part of
education, training and lifelong learning systems at local, regional, national and EU
level. Coherent approaches to digital competences (including design and delivery of
education and training, assessment, certification, and validation of previous learning) must be
incorporated within national learning and skills strategies.

National tools and services, such as employment services, e-Government
services and Learner Management Systems, should be designed to support easier exchange of
information on digital competences and to support citizens.

Appropriate investment is necessary to ensure that every European
citizen has easy and affordable access to education and training in digital competences and the
necessary digital infrastructure and broadband connectivity. The overall percentage of
EU funding dedicated to developing digital competences must be increased in line with the priority
given to digital competences in policy documents and the urgent need to develop digital skills
across Member States. The European Commission and Member States must similarly work on roll-out of
the EU’s digital strategy to deliver on infrastructure, support
innovation and ensure sustainability

The topic of digital competence is a broad ranging area that involves many
areas of government, types of practitioner and policy. ALL DIGITAL will work to support greater
co-operation among digital competence stakeholders in the EU to create greater synergies and better
represent the voice of digital competence centres. ALL DIGITAL will propose
governance mechanisms for DigComp and will continue to manage of a
multi-stakeholder DigComp Community of Practice (CoP) for
communication among stakeholders, and will seek to act as a
representative voice in co-development of tools and
policymaking.