Thousands of Europeans were digitally empowered during the Get Online Week campaign of Telecentre-Europe. Between 18 and 24 March 2013, more than 10.000 ICT learning centres, libraries & schools in 26 countries supported over 100.000 people in their online journeys.
Telecentre-Europe is very pleased with the massive effort done by its partners during Get Online Week 2013 and its astonishing outcomes. In just one week, the European ICT learning centres, libraries, schools, etc. have changed the lives of so many people and proved once more why they are at the frontline of digital empowerment and inclusion.
Get Online Week 2013 actually reflected what happens every week in the centres, and that is something we are all very proud of.
This year, the concept of a mini-survey was piloted and has been completed by almost 100.000 people across Europe. The main goal of this mini-survey was to get not only data about demographics, but also to capture the internet & computer behavior of the respondents. And the analysis is quite interesting for all of us. We think that the mini-survey has proved useful during the campaign, providing us at both national and European level a chance to understand better the telecentre users.
Skillage (www.skillage.eu) has been used by more than 10.000 people during the campaign and you can see below a short analysis of respondents.
However, the complete story of this campaign will be available after we get data from all partners on participants that have been involved and captured through other impact measurement tools, and on the number of people reached through media in each country.
Mini-survey data analysis
From all participants, 53 % are female – a slight advantage for girls and women that confirm their increased interest in the digital skills. Young people have been very active throughout the week, as about 60% of our participants are younger than 24.
Economically active respondents (25-54) make 23 % and 17% are 55 and older. The figures can be different from country to country, but the general trends are similar. 55% are students – from primary, secondary, vocational and high schools, and universities. 25% of all respondents are employed and 10% of those that we have reached are unemployed.
From all the employed respondents, 89% confirmed that they do use computer and internet for daily job tasks. 11% are the ones yet to apply digital technologies to their job duties. This is confirming that more and more jobs are being digitalized.
From those that are unemployed, 65 % use internet for job search. But there is a significant percentage of 35 % – unemployed people not using internet for job search yet.
From retired respondents there is a group of professional users, as 28% tell that they use the internet on a daily basis. 23% of the retired group used the computer for the first time this week!
Skillage data analysis
It seems that the proper digital skills for jobs are still a problem among the young population – the average score comes at 57%, so there’s still a lot to improve.
A minor increase by almost 2% has been recorded compared with the results in the Get Online Week 2012, when the average score was a bit over 55%.
The score difference between female and male is of only 2% (56% female and 58% – male), while in 2012 there was a score difference of 3% (54% – female and 57% – male).
Young people are the main target of Skillage, therefore a bit over 2 thirds of respondents are aged under 24. If we look at this particular age group’s score – we can actually see that the average score is even lower – at 54,5%.
The unemployed respondents, although not a significant percentage in the total number of participants (only 5%), came to an average score of 58%, considering that the majority of them were aged between 25 and 54.
Article written by Laurentiu Bunescu, Get Online Week Campaign Manager
