2BDigital: A project to reduce inequality in education and youth unemployment

• The 2BDigital project focuses on developing teamwork, communication and self-knowledge, skills that have been left in the background in online teaching.
• It is addressed at VET teachers and students and aims to prevent the increase of inequalities in education and its consequent derivation towards unemployment and youth exclusion.
• The methodology of this project focuses on fifteen transversal and digital competences or skills, key for learning and working in digital environments.

Participants of the Project Vives Emplea of Action against Hunger. Gonzalo Höhr

In recent years, and especially since the declaration of the state of alarm, much progress has been made in digitizing education and reducing the digital divide, but efforts have so far focused on what is most urgent: access to technology. 2BDigital Erasmus+ project wants to focus not only on access to technology but, above all, on its use.

In online education, some of the key skills that were promoted face-to-face in the classroom, such as teamwork, communication and even self-knowledge, are left in the background. In many cases, teaching teams do not have the appropriate tools and the pedagogical capacity to develop these skills remotely, which means that they are overshadowed by technical knowledge whose transmission in a digital environment is easier.

These types of skills, along with digital ones, are key to succeed in educational, social and work environments. And they have proven to play an increasingly important role to be able to constantly adapt to change and function in this digital, global and unstable society.

“It is necessary to support teachers with pedagogical guidance and teaching resources adapted to this digital teaching model, which allows them to take advantage of all the opportunities that this medium can provide, and leave no one behind. In this way we avoid increasing existing inequalities in education”, explains Aurora Carrasco, manager of training programs and socio-labour inclusion at Action Against Hunger.

In this context, the project consortium, with entities and organizations in the educational field of Croatia, Belgium, Latvia and Spain, is developing a teaching and learning methodology that makes it easier for teachers to develop these soft skills of students in online education environments. Learning and developing these skills in digital contexts will allow students not only to improve in the educational field, but also to develop them in other areas where digital tools have also been imposed, such as in the workplace and social sphere.

Transversal competences framework

The entities participating in the 2BDigital program, with the support of experts in various fields such as educational innovation, teachers, students and youth trainers, have identified fifteen key transversal and digital competences or skills for learning and working in digital environments that have grouped in a competence framework on which its methodology is based.

To identify these skills, three competence frameworks of the European Commission have been taken into account: EntreComp, for entrepreneurial skills, DigComp, for digital skills, and LifeComp, for life skills. “The goal is to have an integrated framework that makes it easier for teachers to develop study plans and learning experiences,” explains Aurora Carrasco.

Training teachers who promote these fifteen skills in their students also affects the improvement of the socio-labour inclusion of young people “Ensuring that online education is of quality, inclusive and adapted to the needs of each student, will boost the personal and professional development of students, and their employability in the new digital society, during and after the pandemic” says Aurora Carrasco.

Through this project, at least 100 teachers will be trained during its duration, through specific online training, and later on through a MOOC that will seek to extend the scope of the methodology. And 200 students will benefit directly, improving their transversal and digital skills, and boosting their motivation and commitment to education.