The New Skills Agenda for Europe (COM(2016) 381 final, 10.6.2016) launches a number of actions to ensure that the right training, the right skills and the right support is available to people in the European Union. Among these actions, the initiative “Skills Guarantee” asserts that countries that have high shares of adults with low proficiency in basic skills have lower levels of labour productivity and ultimately lower prospects for growth and competitiveness. The skills levels of the working age population are strongly linked to their success in the labour market and engagement and participation in society. Adults with high levels of proficiency in literacy, numeracy and digital skills have a much lower probability of being unemployed (4%) or inactive (18%) than those with low levels (9% and 36% respectively). The Skills Agenda identifies, as one of the three challenges it aims to address, the insufficient skills levels of Europeans. Under this general challenge, this proposal focuses on the high proportion of adults in Europe with insufficient levels of basic literacy, numeracy and digital skills. A fifth of Europeans possess minimal or only rudimentary levels of proficiency in literacy and numeracy ; 40% of EU inhabitants have only low level or no digital skills . Thus, whether we count people with low levels of skill, or low levels of qualification, there are between 65 and 70 million individuals who are at a significant disadvantage as regards employability and social inclusion because of their insufficient level of basic and digital skills. This not only affects them individually, but also jeopardises Europe's economic and social success. In 2011, 21.8% of low-qualified adults (25-64) had taken part in education or training in the preceding year; 78.2% had not taken part. The limited engagement in further learning is due to obstacles that can be structural or situational, with a close link between the two. According to our experience, based on teaching to digital illiterate people, and other specific researches (Jimoyiannis, A., & Gravani, M. (2011)), even when all these obstacles are overcome, there are new difficulties to be faced “anxiety, fear or caution regarding computer use; self-efficacy and confidence in the ability to use ICT; liking use of computers and ICT tools; and perceptions about the value and the usefulness of ICT use in personal life”. All these correlated dimensions are linked to missing life skills, so, first of all, it is necessary to focus the attention on the best practices to enhance the life skills useful to bridge the ultimate grey digital divide. It is also important to detect the best digital literacy teaching approaches and the associated andragogy. Stakeholders directly affected by the project are Education and training institutions and providers, national authorities responsible for education and training. Stakeholders indirectly affected are low qualified and low skilled individuals; companies and social partners, dealing with adult education and training, second chance education. The general objectives of the project are: A) Detect the best practices to enhance the life skills useful to bridge the ultimate grey digital divide B) Promote the adoption of best practices in the partners’ network and their stakeholders The main impact on adult educational providers and their staff is to become aware of the requirements of digital literacy teaching to meet the emerging needs of learners and to know the up-to-date best practices. Moreover, they will be able to orientate their decisions in implementing new digital literacy courses based on effective information. The main indirect impact on learners is the enhancement of their digital skills and of their emotional and cognitive life skills in order to feel at ease with the use of ICT in their everyday personal life. According to the project topic, the main dissemination channel will be the internet, but also specific meetings will be organized. All the news about project meetings, reached milestones and results, will be published through the project website, the partners’ corporate websites, the related pages on social networks and EPALE platform. Moreover, we will also use the "RSS feed syndication" to push the news towards stakeholders and target groups.
The BG2D project was born out of the need for a comparison at European level on how to support adults in the use of new technologies by improving their life skills, as both at local, national and European level it was noted that the two topics are closely linked. Fears, anxieties, technical difficulties and difficulties in understanding the use of new technologies are all factors contributing to potential social exclusion, especially in today's hyper-connected world, which is having a profound impact on the workplace as well. The exchange of good practices within the partnership allowed to understand what could be some solutions, expedients or methodologies to be implemented in the educational programmes of the institutions involved. In order to homogenize the results of the research, a common template was constructed in which the information collected was brought together. The documents with the results of the research were then made available free of charge on the project website, and were included in a short White Paper also made available on the project website. The White Paper also includes a presentation of the project and its objectives, as well as a section with some considerations from the partners on the impact of the pandemic on the project's themes. In fact, the pandemic has increased the impact of new technologies in everyone's life, in some cases exacerbating the digital divide that the project was intended to investigate. The project's general objectives met have been therefore the best practices to enhance the life skills useful to bridge the ultimate grey digital divide and the promotion and adoption of the best practices in the partners’ network and their stakeholders. During the life cycle of the project some of the staff of the partner institutions were involved as Project Management Team, some trainers of the institutions as a group that contributed to the recognition and definition of the needs of adults and finally the adults themselves who will benefit from the results of the project. As specified in the project writing phase, the main impact on adult educational providers and their staff is to become aware of the requirements of digital literacy teaching to meet the emerging needs of learners and to know the up-to-date best practices. The main indirect impact on learners is the enhancement of their digital skills and of their emotional and cognitive life skills in order to feel at ease with the use of ICT in their everyday personal life. We can say that the staff of the involved partners was highly impacted by the project, because of the increased used and need of use of new technologies imposed by the pandemic. The learners as well were highly impacted for the same reason. The BG2D project was in a way supporting the changes that have been taking place during the last two years of pandemic, and this can be regarded as the most important achievement of the project, because it supported the necessary change of perspective and shift from face-to-face activities to online activities that all of the partners had to go through. This can be regarded as a long-term impact and benefit as these changes may stay with us for a very long time if not forever.