Two Day Training on the e-Competency Framework

• April 12, 2018
• admin

Article by Bernadette Zerafa published in The Malta Independent 12.04.2018.

eSkills Malta Foundation organised, facilitated and funded a two day eCompetency (eCF) Training course in collaboration with the Council of European Professional Informatics Societies (CEPIS). The Foundation had been working with CEPIS to pilot this course in Malta, as the first country to receive such practical training by CEPIS. The course attracted 16 attendees coming, from the Public and Private Sector, as well as the education sector. The Training was held on the 28th and 29th March 2018.

The Foundation is committed to promote and encourage the use of this important and useful framework. So much so that in 2016 the Foundation delivered a seminar to educators and industry professionals to discuss the e-CF and its importance to the Maltese Industry and the education and training providers. The benefactors of the e-CF are the ICT employers, ICT professionals and practitioners, students, educational establishments and training providers.

What is the e-Competence Framework or as it is more commonly known the e-CF? In 2016, the e-CF became a European standard and was published officially as the European Norm EN 16234-1. The European e-Competence Framework provides a common language to describe the competences including skills and knowledge requirements of ICT professionals. Currently at version 3.0, the e-CF is made up of 40 competences organised into 5 e-Competence areas. Each competence has also defined the usual proficiency level (five of them) designed to meet the needs of individuals, businesses and other organisations in public and private sectors. The e-CF was developed through a process of collaboration between experts and stakeholders from many different countries under the umbrella of the CEN ICT Skills Workshop. The e-CF is managed and updated by the Technical Committee (TC) 428 which is also responsible for for other subjects relating to the IT Profession and Digital Skills. As of January 2018, under the auspices of MCCAA, Malta is represented in the TC428 by the eSkills Malta Foundation. Recently the Foundation, in collaboration with MCCAA, set up a local mirror committee for the TC428 which includes members of ICT Industry, Education and Government. The Technical Committee 428 has lately initialized the e-CF update project for e-CF version 4, and the local mirror committee will be important for national feedback.

The e-CF was established as a tool to support mutual understanding and provide transparency of language through the articulation of competences required and deployed by ICT professionals (including both practitioners and managers).
The e-CF is guided by the following principles:
The e-CF is an enabler; it is designed to be a tool to empower users, not to restrict them.
The e-CF expresses ICT competence.
Competence is a durable concept.
A competence can be a component of a job role, but it cannot be used as a substitute for similarly named job titles.
Competence is not to be confused with process or technology concepts.
The e-CF does not attempt to cover every possible competence deployed by an ICT professional or ICT manager nor are the included competences necessarily unique to ICT.
The e-CF is structured from four dimensions.
The e-CF has a sector specific relationship to the EQF.
Continuity of the e-CF is imperative.
The e-CF is neutral and open.
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The course delivered by Gapgemini on behalf of CEPIS and it was an interactive learning experience to introduce the e-CF and the possible use of this standard to the various organisations that attended (profit and non profit). The purpose of having interactive sessions was to enable attendees to learn with practical exercises and share each other’s experience. The objectives of the course included how an e-CF is built up, the principles of e-CF, how it is used in an organisation and how to develop an implementation plan of an e-CF. The Foundation will be setting up an e-CF forum so that the use is increased and practice is shared amongst the members.

For more information on e-CF please visit https://www.cepis.org/index.jsp?p=3017&n=3014