“The (education) goals of the past were standardisation and compliance, with students educated in age cohorts, following the same standard curriculum, all assessed at the same time. The future is about building instruction from student passions and capacities, helping students to personalise their learning and assessment in ways that foster engagement and talents, and it’s about encouraging students to be ingenious.” Andreas Schleicher, OECD education expert.
This is exactly what drives us within the Education&Talent pillar at digitalswitzerland: we foster interest and passion for digitalisation, nurture eagerness and opportunities for lifelong education, and attract top talent to Swiss universities and technical schools.
Goals within Education&Talent pillar
With our members and education partners within digitalswitzerland, we are working towards the following goals:
• to create current and future generations that are ready for an ever-evolving workplace,
• upskilling current generations so that they are able to go with the flow, and
• making Switzerland attractive to top talents in the STEM and technology fields.
«nextgeneration»: Getting more youth and teachers involved
Coding, computational thinking, entrepreneurship and familiarization with STEM subjects (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) must be targeted at children and young adults, to create curiosity and promote interest in and vocations for these areas of activity.
«educationdigital.ch»: SMEs and digitalisation
Throughout a working life, people must have the necessary digital skills to adapt to an ever-changing environment. This is not about coding, it is about embedding digitalisation in the workplace, something especially SMEs are still facing many challenges. Issues around data protection and storage, privacy and lack of knowledge of all the helpful tools available are some of the elements slowing uptake by Swiss SMEs, as well as lack of time and resources with the relevant digital skills. digitalswitzerland is working with partners to help SMEs address this through training and information of and for their employees. educationdigital.ch is digitalswitzerland’s free platform that lists courses to learn digital skills for the future.
Keep Switzerland competitive
In a worldwide competition for top talent and attractiveness, the Swiss ecosystem is doing well and seeks to do even better. We thus look to foment top talent from within the student ranks and attract top academic and professional talent to the country. This requires appropriate incentives: infrastructure, career paths, research opportunities, salaries, and work life balance. Through its members, digitalswitzerland is promoting discussion around the subject to keep it in the spotlight of decision-makers.
Bringing it all together
School and university educations, as well as apprenticeships, form the basis for an educated workforce. The Swiss population has many opportunities for lifelong education, online and offline. Lifelong education is the key to keeping people in employment, growing business opportunities and being agile in ever more competitive markets. digitalswitzerland is the partner for those interested in digitisation.
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