Lesson 1: The EU Council Recommendation on Key competences for lifelong learning

In May 2018 the Council of the European Union adopted a recommendation on key competences for lifelong learning. The recommendation identifies eight key competences essential to citizens for personal fulfilment, a healthy and sustainable lifestyle, employability, active citizenship and social inclusion. The recommendation is a reference tool for education and training stakeholders, which sets up a common understanding of competences needed nowadays and in the future. Among them is digital competence.

Following the Council Recommendation “Digital competence involves the confident, critical and responsible use of, and engagement with, digital technologies for learning, at work, and for participation in society. It includes information and data literacy, communication and collaboration, media literacy, digital content creation (including programming), safety (including digital well-being and competences related to cybersecurity), intellectual property related questions, problem solving and critical thinking.”

The Recommendation also foresees the essential knowledge, skills and attitudes related to this competence, as follows: