First round of DigAge+ public consultation

The public consultations (Focus Groups) are being organised on national levels by all consortium partners to ensure the relevance and quality of project results: including the professional profile and competency framework, developed through desk research conducted in each partner country. This activity encourages the dialog and exchange between identified private and public stakeholders and target groups representatives so that they can participate in defining new practices for digital upskilling of existing workforce. These participatory methods are necessary to face the challenges that employees 50+ face daily due to the ongoing digital revolution, while prioritizing inclusive, interactive, and innovative strategies and lifelong learning within various types of educational and vocational systems.

Participants of the French Focus Group consulted on September 2022 agreed with the developed competence framework and pointed out the necessity to develop limited understanding of digital tools and digital environment inside companies, and other private or public structures the target group work for, and a better knowledge of a digital terminology.  The DIG-AGE+ training should also encourage the mindset changes to let the target group overcome the digital/technological fear they face at work on daily basis.

Moreover, according to participants the format of the DIG-AGE+ training should be developed in an accessible digital and interactive format which enables employee 50+ to assess and consult the content easily, share it and return to chosen training units/pills depending on their competence demand in daily work. Therefore, the learning tools shall be adapted to the specificity of the target group and their digital literacy. Consulted experts agreed that interactive and tailored tools seem to be the most efficient option. The use of visual support and step-by-step paths based on real-life scenarios and highly probable office-tasks’ maps seemed to be the most appropriate for DIG-AGE+ target group.