APPG on Digital Skills - focus on education
Simon Peyton Jones, Chair of the National Centre for Computing Education and Computing at school, advises that the fourth industrial revolution is already here, and that technology is already changing the way we live, learn and work.
With a background as a science teacher I believe that digital skills are fundamental to the future success of our country and that’s why I'm looking forward to working with colleagues as an active member of the All Party Parliamentary Group, (APPG), on Digital Skills.
In the first meeting of the group this year we focused on technology in education, and the teaching of digital skills in schools.
We started by exploring the importance of digital skills development in schools, but felt we needed to better understand the breadth of the subject, which included such things as; data analytics, coding, user need analysis, communications and more.
Dawn Hallybone, an educational consultant, shared her experience by advising that schools don’t always teach digital skills well, with children often left to imitate, rather than to really learn. The consensus we came to was that unless we first understand what digital skills are needed it’ll be hard to work out what we need to teach our children to enable them to share in the benefits of a technological future. All felt that it was important that these skills be integrated across the school curriculum, not as a standalone subject, but across all subjects – perhaps even across school life.
One of our speakers, David Jaffa from The Jaffa Foundation, introduced us to an economic ranking of digital skills, noting that some skills had more economic value than others, so we needed to consider having areas of focus, but he went on to reassure by saying:
"Some people are putting forward a vision of the future where everyone is unemployed living in trailer parks playing video games all day. But actually, we’re not seeing that now. We have historically high employment rates, continuing economic growth, improvements in life expectancy and living standards, notwithstanding the ongoing impact of technology on the workplace and jobs."
In my own seat of Penistone and Stocksbridge, we have high levels of employment but there is a lack of the kind of high-skilled, well-paid jobs, that provide the high-quality the long-term opportunities for young people locally. With research by the of Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, (DCMS), showing that roles requiring digital skills pay around 29% more than roles that don’t, and that digital skills are now an almost universal employment requirement, it's clear we need to do much more to support digital skills training.
There is plenty of talent and ambition in Penistone and Stocksbridge and I’m confident that by skilling-up our local workforce we’ll be able to attract more tech investment, and as a result, more high-quality jobs. So over the next months I will be working with local schools, businesses, the tech community and our universities to develop a digital strategy for the constituency, so that we are ready and able to take advantage of the huge growth of the UK tech sector.
