Students gain digital skills for the workplace

Burton and South Derbyshire College has been working in partnership with Vision West Nottinghamshire College Group, Nottingham College, Chesterfield College Group and Buxton and Leek College to create an essential digital skills course for learners.

The five local colleges have been working together with platform developers, Classfeeds as the Consortium for Essential Digital Skills on behalf of D2N2 Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP), to help address the delivery of digital literacy across all vocations to better prepare students for the digital world we live in.

Each college has created a specific module with Classfeeds which is combined to form the course, covering digital foundation skills, communication, handling information and content, transacting, problem-solving and being safe and responsible online.

The course is flexible and allows students to study at their own pace, taking approximately 40 hours to complete. The software enables students to login to a video orientation of the course. Students are prompted to take a diagnostic assessment and presented with a study path based on their assessment result. Once completed, students are issued with a certificate and digital badge to download as a record of their achievements. 

Burton and South Derbyshire College is aiming to deliver the course to all 16-18 students, supported by staff in the Learning Resources Centre. Moving forward, the Essential Digital Skills Programme has the potential to be available to all age groups in varying formats to use for both work and life skills.

Art and Design student, Josh Griffin, who recently completed the training said: “This course is very beneficial for people who want to not only refresh their knowledge of IT but also want to get a career out of it. I’m glad that I achieved the qualification alongside my course. I now have much more of an insight into internet safety as well!”

Amardeep Singh, Co-founder and Chief Technology Officer of Classfeeds said: “We’re delighted to be working alongside the FE sector to transform digital learning experiences for students. Our purpose was, and will always be, to provide the right material in the right way at the right pace for the learner, whoever that may be. We want to harness the power of machine learning, automation and affective computing to help innovate the best experiences for learners, both inside and outside the classroom. This fantastic collaboration really does offer that much-needed transition into the digital world we live in for everyone, anywhere.”

John Beaty, Vice Principal at Burton and South Derbyshire College said: “This project is vital in ensuring our learners, regardless of their future job role or occupation, have the requisite digital skills and literacy to not only succeed but to contribute to their sectors digital transformation. The collaboration of colleges coming together with private sector partners to create something of real value to all of our learners is a real strength of the D2N2 LEP area and the FE Colleges within it. We are incredibly excited about what this collaboration means for the future and how it can continue to benefit our learners and local communities.”

Sage Lal, Director of Curriculum and project manager at Burton and South Derbyshire College added: “The course covers the skills needed to safely benefit from, participate in and contribute to the digital world of today and the future. The intention is to engage and support students to enhance their essential digital skills. We’re committed to ensuring our students progress from college with the digital skills that employers are looking for, setting them up for success in their future careers.”