The global crisis has deeply impacted the education sector worldwide. Hundreds of millions of school and university students learned to adapt to their new daily routine of studying remotely via e-platforms. While many schools and universities have succeeded in shifting towards the world of virtual education smoothly and systematically, public education departments started playing a vital and key role, not only to ensure that schools obtain the necessary digital tools, but also to provide innovative learning platforms to all community groups, including employees.

Numerous cities imposed lockdown measures, allowing many to learn and acquire new skills at home. But this was not an easy task, especially with the absence of innovative learning platforms. To address this challenge, the UK’s Education Secretary launched a new e-learning platform to help boost skills while people are staying at home.

The new initiative called The Skills Toolkit allows citizens to benefit from free online courses through theskillstoolkit website. It has helped citizens build up their skills, progress in work, and boost their job prospects. Courses on offer cover a range of levels, from maths and tools for using email and social media more effectively to more advanced training. These online courses were built in partnership with the Department of Education, Accenture, the Institute of Coding, and the University of Leeds.

To ensure that these courses meet the needs of the current and future labor market, the topics were selected based on the recommendations and advice of a group of prominent experts and companies in the UK.  This initiative is a first step towards assisting with the longer-term recovery from COVID-19. Digital skills have proven to have an important and effective role in the workplace and in other aspects of life. Technological tools will continue to contribute to global economic recovery.

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