| |
In support of the Grand Coalition for Digital Jobs inaugural event, the Council of European Professional Informatics Societies (CEPIS) announces its pledge to launch the CEPIS e-Competence Benchmark, a free, online interactive tool, to help tackle skills mismatches and facilitate better career pathways for Europe’s current and future ICT professionals.
The increasing demand for ICT practitioners is hampered not only by the lack of new entrants into the profession, but also by the mismatches in the competences that practitioners have today . Europe’s professional informatics societies recognise the need to bridge the gap between supply and demand, promote ICT Professionalism and thus address the imbalance. With its national members, CEPIS will launch the CEPIS e-Competence Benchmark in 2013 to support the training, matching and certification objectives of the Grand Coalition.
The Grand Coalition for Digital Jobs is a much-needed initiative of stakeholders committing to work together to ensure that Europe has the skilled ICT Professionals it needs now and in the future to boost Europe’s competitiveness. The Grand Coalition is the brain child of Neelie Kroes, Vice-President of the European Commission and enjoys high level political support from José Manuel Barroso, President of the European Commission, Antonio Tajani, Vice-President of the European Commission, László Andor, European Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion, and Androulla Vassiliou, European Commissioner for Education, Culture, Multilingualism and Youth.
The CEPIS e-Competence Benchmark is powered by the European e-Competence Framework (e-CF), the common language for ICT competences created by the CEN workshop on ICT skills which provides a standard upon which Europeans can better understand what is needed for their current and future IT roles. As recognition of the importance of the e-CF, CEPIS has recently signed the European e-Competence Framework Pledge to foster the adoption of the e-CF as a European Standard and embedded the e-CF as the engine of the CEPIS e-Competence Benchmark.
The CEPIS e-Competence Benchmark will make it possible for current and would-be ICT professionals to identify the competences they need/lack for various ICT roles, thus enabling them to adapt to labour market demand. By better matching the competences of ICT professionals with labour market needs, this new tool will contribute to lessen the digital ‘brain drain’ that is affecting some countries such as Spain and Greece as a result of the economic crisis . It will enable individuals and recruiters to map their competences against a range of profiles and better equip themselves for future roles and employment. It will also allow companies to benchmark entire departments, identify workforce gaps and plan accordingly. A national report will be produced for each participating country, as well as a European level report with policy recommendations to support the development of the ICT profession and the aims of the Grand Coalition.
|
michel.krmek[.]cepis.org 
