OeAD Digital Skills Office established: 3,500 workshops for all Austrian municipalities

Digital skills workshops in every municipality of Austria – state secretary Tursky: “Digital skills offensive brings Austria forward”

The state secretary for digitisation, Florian Tursky, describes today's opening of the Digital Skills Office at the OeAD, Austria’s Agency for Education and Internationalisation, as a “milestone for Austria’s digital skills offensive”.“To take advantage of the opportunities that digitisation presents for Austria we need one thing above all: digital skills. Although we are above the EU average more than 30% of the Austrians lack the necessary basic skills. With the OeAD office we have created the necessary working structure to systematically increase peoples’ digital skills everywhere in Austria. The digital skills offensive thus brings the whole of Austria forward,” explains the state secretary for digitisation, Florian Tursky.
“As agency for education and internationalisation the OeAD is the competent agency for digital skills. Acquiring digital skills for a job and for life, becoming confident in dealing with the media, being aware of the dangers and the possibilities. This is where the National Reference Framework will come in to show the skills. And: We want to help ensure that the Austrians know how to use the “digital office” – whether it is in connection with passports, driving licences, requesting documents or ultimately when giving birth or inheriting. Knowing how to use Austria’s digital administration is something that is often requested at the workshops,” emphasises the OeAD’s managing director Jakob Calice.
Around 63% of the 16- to 74-year-olds in Austria have basic digital skills. This puts us nine percentage points above the EU-27 average. The European Commission’s goal is that at least 80% of the 16- to 74-year-olds in the EU member countries should have at least basic digital skills by 2030. In Austria we are going one step further and working to ensure that, if possible, all people have basic digital skills by 2030.
3,500 workshops all over Austria
Against this backdrop the OeAD Digital Skills Office will ensure, among other things, that "Digital Everywhere" digitisation workshops for basic digital skills will be held in all Austrian municipalities in 2024. 3,500 workshops will be held altogether, 860 of them already this year. The Digital Skills Office will help implement the work programme of the Digital Skills Strategy presented in the summer, which includes the development and implementation of a uniform digital skills model.
“With strong implementation partners we will be able to hold workshops all over Austria to increase digital skills among the people; possible focal aspects of the workshops are, for example, IT security or, next year, workshops on artificial intelligence,” emphasises Patrick Reisinger, head of the OeAD’s Digital Skills Office.
“Our goal is clear: we want to achieve that all people in Austria, as far as possible, have basic digital skills by 2030. Therefore we will be holding a total of 3,500 workshops in all of Austria’s municipalities. Austria as a whole will benefit from this because it helps us to sustainably bring the country forward and thus make the most of the opportunities that digitisation offers,” continues Tursky.
Cooperation partner for providers
The work programme of the office until 2026, which was presented today, includes, besides contributing to the implementation of the Digital Skills Strategy and the digital skills model, a concept for quality assurance and certification of digital skills, the establishment of a digital skills network involving stakeholders and initiatives, and active positioning in the European Commission’s “Digital Skills and Job Coalition”.
www.digitalaustria.gv.athttps://digitalekompetenzen.oead.at
To the pictures in the APA photo gallery: https://www.apa-fotoservice.at/galerie/34354

Enquiries and contact:
Office of the state secretary Florian Tursky, MSc. MBA.
Ing. Michael Tögel, BA
Deputy spokesperson of the state secretary
Mobile phone number: +43 664 8581576
E-mail: michael.toegel@bmf.gv.at
Web: www.bmf.gv.at

OeAD – Agency for Education and Internationalisation
Mag. Ursula Hilmar
Spokesperson
Tel: +43 1 53408-270
E-mail: presse@oead.at
Web: www.oead.at