Upskilling Pathways for Adults through ICT and social media

One of the Europe 2020 targets is to raise employment, especially for women, young people and older workers, aiming for a 75% employment rate for people aged 20-64. A key obstacle is the high rate of low-skilled and low-qualified adults competing in the labour market: around 20% of people have no digital skills, while demand for digital technology professionals has grown by roughly 4% a year over the preceding decade, with unfilled ICT vacancies expected to almost double to 756,000 by 2020.

The project aimed to promote the entrepreneurial spirit of adult learners, using social media and ICT to help them create new e-enterprises and take part in a modern, flexible and inclusive labour market. Specific objectives were to: build adult learners' and teachers' confidence in using social media and ICT; enable adult students to create their own e-enterprise by promoting entrepreneurial and social-entrepreneurship culture; support the development of key and transversal competences; help vulnerable groups and people at risk of social exclusion participate in newly created opportunities; and build an effective learning community linking adult training institutions, policymakers and enterprises.

Partners worked daily with vulnerable adult students facing multiple barriers such as social exclusion, poverty or discrimination, exploring these issues and identifying ICT- and social-media-based solutions to support their entry into the labour market. The project involved 50 adult teachers, 150 adult students, 5 enterprises, 2 public authorities (Ayuntamiento de Guadassuar and Benifaio), 1 university (Universidad de Valencia), 1 inspectors' trade union (USIE), and 2 adult schools (Alzira, Algemesi), and produced a training materials package.