Exchange Seminar between Latvian Digital Skills Partners

• December 22, 2022
• neelam

On 20 December, theLatvian Information and Communication Technology Association (LIKTA) organised an experience-sharing seminar at which Latvia’s digital skills partners looked at what had been done in 2022 and shared key priorities for 2023.

The event presented the results of the WOMEN4IT project in Latvia and Europe, implemented by LIKTA in Latvia in cooperation with the State Employment Agency (NVA). Under the project, more than 900 young women in project partner countries were trained in 8 digital works profiles. The materials and methodologies developed by the project are available to all interested parties on digitaljobs.women4it.eu.

Liene Priede, Head of the Digital Skills Promotion Projects Department of theMinistry of Environmental Protection and Regional Development (VARAM) Project Management Department, informed about the ongoing and planned digital skills development activities in Latvia in the coming years. In the course of 2022, the project ‘Information and Communication Technology Architecture Management System for Public Administration – 2nd round’ resulted in 2005 people graduating from the Digital Leaders’ curriculum and 21657 further training. Three free distance learning programmes for digital leaders, digital agents and society’s digital skills development have also been developed and available on macibas.mana.latvija.lv. At least 40000 people are expected to develop digital skills by May 2026. This will be implemented under the Recovery and Resilience Facility Plan, activity 2.3.2.1i “Digital self-service skills and young people’s technological skills”.

Gunta Arāja, Deputy Director of the Structural Funds Department of the Ministry of Education and Science (IMM) in the field of vocational education and lifelong learning development, briefed on various developments in the field of education in 2023, highlighting in particular the planned activities and opportunities for cooperation for all digita-skills graduates from the digit. In 2023, the digital literacy of the Latvian public investment programmes in Latvia is a priority. The MoA is aware of the existing investment measures of the Recovery Funds, in which the project pipeline is expected to be 66.3 million in 2023. The EUR Area provides for investment in all digitised skills, that the process should not be used to provide hardware to the public, and that adequate internet capacity must be developed by the public authorities.

Evita Simsone, Director of the NVA, shared statistics on active employment measures and preventive measures. Workers, jobseekers and unemployed are offered the opportunities offered by NVAs through non-formal and vocational training, as well as access to different online course platforms for digital skills development. In 2022, more than 5000 customers took advantage of various options. The labour force and the Ministry of the Economy (Ministry of Economy) have drawn up an interactive labour market projection platform, which provides information on the current situation in the labour market and the demand for labour market in the NVA i-stermina, and on the EM environment and the long-term and long-term labour market forecasts.

At the end of the event, Mars Jakobsson, Vice-President of LIKTA, highlighted next year’s priorities in the area of digital skills and called for an exchange of topical information through the Latvian Digital Skills Partnership Platform, which brings together the digital skills resources of both Latvia and European countries. Working with the Ministry of Education and Science, the Digital Skills Cooperation Memorandum will also be updated in 2023, including key priorities for the period up to 2027.

Representatives of local government and public authorities, educational institutions, businesses, non-governmental organisations and regional training centres, including the Ministry of Education and Science, the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Regional Development, the Centre for Cultural Information Systems, the University of Latvia, the Baltic Computer Academy, IF Latvia, FITA, Zemgale Regional Centre for Competence Development and Ventspils Digital Centre , etc., participated physically and online.

Presentations of the seminar are available in HERE.

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