Essential Digital Skills contract awarded

The Education and Training Foundation (ETF) has awarded a contract for the CPD programme to support the government’s Essential Digital Skills entitlement to an expert consortium led by Sero Consulting with DESQ and SkillsLogic.

The new entitlement will enable adults aged 19+ with no or low digital skills to undertake ‘essential digital skills’ qualifications free of charge from 2020. The aim is to give everyone the opportunity to benefit from digital technology and stay safe online. The new qualifications will be available for teaching from August 2020.

The ETF has been commissioned by the Department for Education (DfE) to develop and manage the delivery of the CPD programme to help prepare teachers and trainers in England to deliver these qualifications, which will cover new topics to the previous basic digital skills qualifications, such as using different devices, buying securely online and protecting privacy online.

The CPD programme provided by the ETF-contracted consortium will include:

• an interactive self-assessment tool and a teacher CPD toolkit
• a series of bite-sized, online training modules
• face-to-face training and online webinars
• development of a community of practice to offer peer-to-peer support.

The training modules and the teacher CPD toolkit will be hosted on the ETF’s Enhance Digital Teaching Platform, which already provides online training support for teachers and trainers to develop their digital skills. The consortium delivering the essential digital skills CPD programme is also the consortium behind the development of the Enhance Digital Teaching Platform, therefore providing continuity between the two projects.

Vikki Liogier, Head of Learning Technologies at the ETF, who is leading the DfE commissioned work, said:

“We are delighted to award this contract and start development of the Essential Digital Skills CPD programme. We know that giving teachers and trainers the skills and confidence to deliver these essential digital skills qualifications will be critical to the success of the new entitlement.”

Liz Wallis, Managing Director of Sero Consulting, the lead partner of the consortium said:

“We are looking forward to working with the ETF and with partners across the sector to develop the blended training and support programme for the new Essential Digital Skills entitlement. User-centred design will inform every aspect of the development approach, and we will build on the feedback of current basic digital skills teachers and trainers to focus on those areas of most concern.”