When It Comes to Tech, Teachers Are Just Like Everyone Else

Back at the beginning of the year, The Telegraph ran a piece about the shockingly low level of tech skills in the UK workforce, and how that's mirrored in education, specifically FE. It's a really interesting read, so I'll quote at length ...

... Britain's adult population as a whole is struggling with technology. The OECD Adult Skills report, published last year, indicated that a whopping 75 percent of adults in this country only have tech skills around Level 1 and below. Just 5 percent have L3 skills, which relates to something as routine as using a scheduling tool to set up a meeting. These are pretty shocking statistics.

You would hope then that employers - particularly those in education - might want to invest a little in fixing this, but when it comes to 40 FE colleges surveyed ...

More than 60 percent of the organisations involved had no specific development plans in place to develop the digital skills of their staff, despite the evident gaps in knowledge and application.

The author, Bev Jones from the Career Colleges Trust, goes on to make the case for effective CPD as the solution.

... we have to allay teachers’ fear, which our research suggests is the key issue. This fear is on two counts; fear that students may know more than them and fear that the technology wouldn’t work during the lesson. Quality CPD is key here.

Like every other profession, teaching is being transformed by technology - and like everyone else, a lot of teachers are struggling. This is reflected in a lack of confidence and, as Bev notes, fear.To address this we need to provide teachers with appropriate training, and (just as importantly) time to engage in that training. Training builds skills. Skills build confidence.And confident teachers have a far better chance of helping tomorrow's workforce build stronger tech skills.