Bridge the Gap: ICT Competences and Vocational Education and Training

Dear Colleagues,

Organizations need a well-established strategy to skill, reskill, and upskill workers to cater for the future needs of our societies. Today, this need is most visible in software development, delivery, and operation—a fast-growing sector where industry stakeholders, education and training providers, and professionals need to keep up with emerging technologies and new trends. Keeping up with emerging technologies is important not only for the IT sector, but data and technologies are increasingly disrupting other sectors as well.

In addition, students with myriad different backgrounds enter educational programs. Part-time learning, continuous learning, and immediate-on-the-spot knowledge acquisition change the educational playground. It is challenging for educational providers to accommodate these backgrounds where every student has their own pace. The delivery of education itself has also been changing as technology allows for many new possibilities, and this change has been accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic since a considerable share of education moved online. New modes of learning and instruction have emerged, such as the hybrid virtual classroom. Educators are rapidly developing their digital and pedagogical skills to deliver their courses remotely. Challenges related to motivation, accessibility, and wellbeing have emerged.

For this Special Issue, we invite a broad range of research contributions that focus on new skills that are relevant in this digital era either in the IT sector or other sectors (what) and on the challenges that come with delivering digital, blended, and hybrid education (how).

Dr. Guido Ongena
Dr. Esther van der Stappen
Guest Editors

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