According to the European Commission’s annual Digital Agenda Scoreboard 2014, which evaluates the diffusion of Internet throughout the Union, the gap between new web technology and digital skills is widening. Nearly 50% of Europeans do not have sufficient digital skills for the workplace. The report reveals that this gap “persists in a moment in which more and more ICT specialists are necessary and the ICT sector continues to grow seven times more rapidly than other sectors.
The campaign promoted by Microsoft and Telecentre Europe in collaboration with the Fondazione Mondo Digitale and Tesi Automazione aims to perfect and certify the skills that youth need to enter the working world through the distribution of 1000 vouchers. Based on the data collected in June, teachers and students have responded very positively to this initiative.
To date, schools have requested 1163 vouchers for Microsoft Office Specialist (MOS) Certifications (which is also valid as university credit and public call scores) and 551 vouchers for Microsoft Technology Associate (MTA) Certifications that attest IT skills that are in high demand on the job market.
The initiative is part of the YouthSpark initiative and is based on the long partnership between Microsoft and Telecentre-Europe to promote youth employment and address the technological skill mismatch amongst young job seekers. The certifications are provided by the Microsoft IT Academy Programme that has distributed 1.4 million certifications to students around the world over the last 12 months.
