Worldwide Digital Skills Shortage…

But Who Teaches The Teachers?

A vast chasm of knowledge exists between what is currently being taught as ‘digital skills’ and what businesses in today’s mostly mobile digital marketplace/job space actually need.

And this knowledge gap continues to widen as more and more businesses ‘get online’ for the first time. 

New .com and .net domain name registrations alone totalled approximately 9.6 million at the end of the second quarter of 2018, compared to 9.2 million domain name registrations for the second quarter of 2017. [source: https://blog.verisign.com/domain-names/verisign-q2-2018-domain-name-industry-brief-internet-grows-to-339-8-million-domain-name-registrations-in-the-second-quarter-of-2018/ ]

  That’s over 106,000 registrations per day!

 OK. Not all domains registered are used immediately but if only one tenth of these newly registered domains (remember, these are only .com and .net), are actively being used for commercial purposes, that’s still 10,000+ new websites per day in urgent need of appropriate digital skills to research, design, build, launch and maintain a robust, profitable web presence – indefinitely.

Today’s new-to-the-web business owners are only too aware of the importance of establishing a strong, strategic web presence but, more often than not, have enough on their plate running their business and have neither the time nor the desire to learn all this new web stuff. So they attempt to ‘buy in’ (outsource) the digital skills they need to fulfil a specific web-based task.

Unfortunately there is a severe lack of competent individuals with appropriate digital skills to support the phenomenal growth of today’s digital landscape… 

…and there are very few educators who are familiar and up-to-date with the ever-evolving ‘digital skills’ requirement for successful web presence development, an essential business practice in today’s global marketplace.

Who Teaches The Teachers?

OK. Let’s take a moment to understand something.

1. The education system is designed to provide young adults with a basic set of academic skills to prepare them for ‘higher learning’ or the job market. 

2. The needs of the job market informs the context (and quality) of the content within the education system. By quality I mean the level of usefulness of the content. Otherwise going to school would be pointless if everything taught to the young learner had no use in the ‘real’ world,

Thankfully, we learn three life-shaping things when we enter learning establishments,

• We learn how to socialise through interaction with fellow students.
• We learn how to learn through interaction with educators.
• We learn a collection of recommended topics.

Together these learning experiences transform the schoolchild into a malleable entity ready to slot (upon leaving full-time education) into someone else’s timetable, someone else’s business, someone else’s vision of personal success. 

3. The needs of the job market are continually evolving, particularly the urgent need for ‘digitally proficient’ individuals.

4. The education system is not evolving at the same rate as the needs of the job market.

Conclusion – Learners are leaving full-time education under-informed about the true nature and power of the web and its increasing role in the development and growth of many of today’s biggest economies. Today’s learners are unaware of the income and employment opportunities now available in the global ‘digital’ job space/marketplace.

So…

…who teaches the teachers?

With the digital skills shortage taking a ‘long age’ to be resolved by ‘conventional’ education initiatives, I believe ‘Webcraft for Beginners’ should be given serious consideration as an optional ‘plug-in’ to existing learning establishments ‘digital skills’ strategies. On the subject of digital skills enlightenment, there is nothing more up-to-date.

The truth of it is, the current digital skills training initiatives are letting all schoolchildren down by not being up to date.

Sure, an A* is great. It tells us that the kid’s a self-disciplined learner with a great work rate. Attributes admired and desired by bosses the world over.

However, an A* is, by design, becoming the norm. By ‘teaching’ our children to ‘aspire’ to something that has mediocre value in the ‘real’ world, we’re moulding them to become mediocre members of society. Look up the ‘mediocre’, it means average, ordinary, commonplace, etc.

Should our schoolkids come out of eleven years of full-time schooling feeling ‘ordinary’?

Shouldn’t they be coming out of school feeling ‘extraordinary’, empowered, excited and educated about all the amazing opportunities their acquired knowledge now affords them?

It would appear, unfortunately, that the development of an understanding of entrepreneurship and enterprise is a much-needed thread yet to be woven inextricably throughout our existing school curriculum.

Bridging the Knowledge Chasm

Webcraft for Beginners bridges the ‘knowledge chasm’ by introducing the learner to all activities associated with web presence development, arguably one of, if not, the largest industry in the world. 

Webcraft for Beginners does this by explaining both why all these activities are necessary and what digital skills are needed to perform these activities.

Webcraft for Beginners instils in the learner a passion for entrepreneurship & enterprise, an strong understanding of e-commerce & online economics and the importance of empathy through engagement.

By combining learner aspiration with specialised education and timely calls-to-action, the learner grows enlightened, empowered and entrepreneurial, and at the very least, highly employable.

Webcraft: S.P.E.C.I.A.L.I.T.Y.

Webcraft for Beginners’ curriculum structure is based upon a finite set of essential ‘evergreen’ topics (ten to be exact) not taught in any existing learning establishment or youth empowerment/engagement program, anywhere. These ten definitive topics (disciplines) were discovered through extensive research. To learn about these disciplines continue reading…

Income and Employment Opportunities

By understanding the various ‘digital’ activities business owners need to accomplish online to successfully promote their brand, products or services, and then offering to do those activities for them, young learners can become ‘expert webcrafters’ (digital web service providers) and significantly transform their income and employment opportunities.

Below is an overview of the ten definitive areas of ‘web presence development’ activity where a ‘webcrafter’ can provide a service.

To help make things clearer and simple to recall, I’ve created a ten letter acronym. Each letter represents the initial letter of one of the ten essential areas of activity. 

SPECIALITY

SPECIALITY