Digital Poland Association calls for technology training to start at teacher-training universities
Future teachers should be required to develop digital skills while still at university, rather than only after entering the profession. This is one of the key proposals put forward by the Digital Poland Association in its position paper on the government’s Digital Competence Development Programme. The organisation is also proposing the introduction of an education voucher for teachers and a systemic, centrally funded approach to managing IT infrastructure in schools.
What is the situation today? Students pursuing teaching degrees often graduate without sufficient skills to use new technologies effectively and responsibly. The Digital Poland Association wants to change this and has presented the government with a concrete proposal: mandatory digital technology courses as part of teacher training programmes.
The proposal was submitted to the Ministry of Digital Affairs as part of the consultation process on the Digital Competence Development Programme. According to the Association, the Programme in its current form focuses primarily on upskilling teachers who are already working in schools, while overlooking the stage at which intervention could be most effective – teacher training at university level. The Association argues that information technologies should become a mandatory part of the curriculum for students preparing to become teachers, so that they enter the profession equipped with the necessary digital skills instead of having to acquire them later through additional training.
“Teachers’ digital skills are the foundation of a modern society, because teachers then pass this knowledge on to children,” says Michał Kanownik, President of the Digital Poland Association. He adds that changes to teacher training should also be accompanied by adjustments to school curricula, so that the knowledge and skills acquired by teachers can be effectively put into practice in the classroom.
Could an education voucher help close the skills gap?
Another important proposal put forward by the Association is the introduction of an education voucher that teachers could use individually to choose training courses and workshops that best match their actual needs. The organisation points out that teachers of different ages and with different levels of experience have varying gaps in their digital knowledge and skills, which cannot be effectively addressed through a one-size-fits-all offer of centrally imposed e-learning platforms.
“The market – in other words, commercially available training courses and workshops – is best placed to respond to these diverse needs. That is why we are calling for public funding to be allocated specifically to such a voucher, allowing training to be flexibly tailored to the individual skills gaps of each teacher,”explains Michał Kanownik.
The position paper also reiterates a proposal submitted by the Association a few days earlier in a letter to the Ministry of National Education: the introduction of systemic, centrally funded management of IT infrastructure in schools. Such an approach would enable local authorities to effectively administer their growing technology resources and protect them against cyber threats. As Digital Poland Association experts emphasise, strategic documents such as the Digital Competence Development Programme should clearly address the need for central funding to standardise approaches to IT management across schools.
“These two issues – investing in teachers’ digital skills and ensuring effective management of schools’ digital infrastructure – are two sides of the same challenge. Both now require a systemic rather than ad hoc response from the state,” concludes the President of the Digital Poland Association.