DISC: Improving migrants’ digital skills and active citizenship

How to improve migrants digital skills while enhancing their integration and promoting active citizenship?

The DISC project is working to give an answer to this question! From the 11th to the 13th of February 2019  the five parter organizations of the DISC consortium got together in Vantaa, Finland for the KICK-OFF meeting, launching the project activities.

Digital skills are increasingly essential in the labour market europe-wide and are also an important tool for societal and civic participation. Providing migrants with such skills will not only boost their employability but also foster their ability to communicate and bond with the local communities they live in and participate more as active citizen.

The rationale behind the project is based on best practices upscaling. Some of these are already well established methodologies within some of the partner organizations. For instance, LAUREA’s multisensory space method is an highly effective open learning environment and tool as well as source of inspiration. The second best practice, SMART PLUS self-assessment tool, is an online tool for digital skills self evaluation.

Together these two best practices will be adapted to the local context of the partner countries and pilot tested with groups of 40 participants per country. Moreover, a training tool for teachers will be developed in order to give them the necessary competences to teach digital skills for migrants.

The outcome of the first meeting has been the agrement on the next steps to take as well as a more solid and well balanced partnership. Five organizations and institutions from five european countries will share their experience, knowledge and practices in the best cooperational spirit.

What steps will we take next?

In the upcoming months CESIE and other partners will carry out a need analysis to get a sense of what is actually needed in the local context, to which best practices will have to be adapted to. This research phase will involve both migrants and local learners and teachers who will provide valuable data on the most needed skills and what are the barriers teachers and learners face.