Digital pilot scheme hopes to help bridge skills gap

Thursday 22 June 2023

Digital Jersey has launched a 'Digital Skills Credits' pilot scheme which hopes to make it easier and more cost effective for individuals and businesses to access digital courses and workshops.

Launching in July, the six-month pilot scheme has been designed to help bridge the island's growing digital skills gap.

Islanders will still be able to access a vast array of free and paid courses and workshops at Digital Jersey; it is just the way to pay and sign up for these resources that will change.  

'Pay as you go' courses will continue from free Level 1 entry level sessions up to bespoke courses at Level 4 and beyond. The new credit subscription will allow islanders to buy a block of credits that can be used by multiple employees in a business or for a named individual.

Digital Jersey hopes that 'Digital Skills Credits' will prove to be a cost-effective way to access higher level digital skills and could be used to accelerate the learning of an individual or to upskill a whole team or department. 

The introduction of the pilot scheme comes shortly after the Government published its annual report on population issues, which highlighted that equipping islanders with future-fit digital skills is a critical way to reduce the current rate of population growth and ensure Jersey doesn’t realise the hypothetical population figure of 150,000 by 2040.

Rory Steel, Head of the Digital Jersey Academy said: “We have a track record of delivering high quality, expert led courses at Digital Jersey which we will continue to offer across all price points.

"Moving to a hybrid of free and paid courses allows us to sustain the quantity and quality of the skills we can support in the long term. This new Digital Skills credit scheme will make it easier to access our courses. We hope that the pilot will be a success and will launch fully in 2024.”

Find out more about the pilot project on Digital Jersey's website.