CCEA Digital Skills Curriculum and Qualifications Framework

Northern Ireland's Council for the Curriculum, Examinations and Assessment (CCEA), a regional educational body funded by government, developed a Digital Skills Curriculum & Qualifications Framework mapping how students progress through Key Stages 1-3, GCSE, GCE and A-level to become Digital Citizens, Workers or Makers.

To close gaps in digital-skills provision identified in reports such as the NI Momentum Strategic Plan (2013/2014), which flagged that digital literacy should be taught as a separate subject and warned of a shortage of trained digital workers.

CCEA engaged universities (Queen's, Ulster), industry (including CBI and JP Morgan) and teacher representatives to develop new qualifications in Digital Technology (GCSE/GCE) and Software Development (GCE), and ran training to build teachers' digital confidence.

According to the programme's own attributes, the framework has reached approximately 83,000 people against a targeted population of about 330,000, and remains ongoing.

The framework provided a basis for assessing progression gaps and prompted joint work with stakeholders to plug them, including upskilling a large number of teachers to deliver digital literacy education across Northern Ireland.