The National Digital Competence Academy is an initiative of the Ministry of Digital Governance aimed at developing and gathering educational content on an online platform. It has been available since May 2021 with free and free access for all those who want to improve, strengthen and develop their digital skills.
For the first time, citizens are given the opportunity to choose and follow appropriate open IT and communication technology trainings free of charge in order to acquire basic and advanced digital competences. It also accelerates citizens’ digital literacy by alleviating educational, economic and social inequalities. By improving their level of digital skills, citizens can:
- know how to use the digital services of the Greek state;
- make use of ICT in all aspects of their daily lives; and
- enrich their existing knowledge in order to make them more attractive to the labour market.
Expected benefits
The National Digital Competence Academy has the ambition to play an active role in the field of digital literacy, continuously enriching its educational content to citizens. He has more than 290 basic and advanced level courses corresponding to more than 1 800 hours of training. The courses are also offered by organisations with recognised academic and educational standing, such as Greek academic institutions, well-known international companies, banking institutions, telecommunications providers and digital education organisations. They are divided into the following six thematic categories:
Communication and cooperation: Courses are available in this category for communication applications, home work, mobile devices and social networks.
internet: The content of courses in this category falls, inter alia, in the fields of personal data protection and secure internet browsing.
tools for daily use: The educational content of this category is related to the fields of computer use and office applications.
digital entrepreneurship: Courses in this category are aimed at those interested in further enriching their knowledge on digital marketing and the modern business context.
computer science: The visitor in this category can attend courses on databases, programming languages, cybersecurity, ICT and education, communication networks, etc.
cutting-edge technologies: The educational content of this category is related to the fields of artificial intelligence, cloud computing, etc.
Finally, the user’s navigation on the platform is simple and friendly. The training materials are freely available to all, without complex registration procedures, and each user can choose the course that suits their interests and level of knowledge, follow it and complete it whenever they wish.
An additional benefit offered by the National Digital Competence Academy is its digital skills self-assessment tool based on the European Digital Competence Framework, DigComp v2.1, which describes 21 digital skills organised in 5 categories. Upon completion of the test and depending on its results, the user receives personalised information on the available courses of the Academy that he/she can attend in order to improve his/her level of digital knowledge. In particular for specialised ICT users or professionals, a significant number of courses can be selected and attended. It ensures access to digital knowledge for vulnerable groups by achieving social cohesion and a smooth transition to the digital age.
Paper on Digital Transformation 2020-2025 & National Academy of Digital Competences
The National Digital Competence Academy is fully aligned with the Ministry of Digital Governance’s strategic planning for digital literacy by enhancing training and improving citizens’ digital skills by responding to the needs shaped by the ever-changing digital environment.
The functioning of the National Academy of Digital Competences as the central reference point for the field of digital competences is also described in the Digital Transformation Paper 2020-2025, the national strategy for the digital transformation of the country for the next five years. More specifically, it is described as one of the objectives of the Strategic Intervention Axis: “Digital Capacities & Skills” with the following objectives:
- bring together education and training programmes at one entry point to enable the entire population to acquire digital skills, both at basic, intermediate and advanced levels.
- provide educational programmes both online (through modern and asynchronous education) and face-to-face.
- provide trainees with a single homogenised certification mechanism for digital skills education and training programmes at national level.
- ensure that the citizens’ self-diagnosis mechanism is used to identify the individual level of digital competence and define a personalised learning pathway.
- make continuous use of best European practices and widely used educational models and standards.
- provide a platform for cooperation, i.e. a central hub for cooperation between public and private digital education providers.
Information and visual material was extracted from the website of the National Academy of Digital Competences.
