Universities and Digital Skills’ Development in Colombia.

The development of human capital is a driver for economic growth. Future educational systems, based on digital platforms, can make us more resilient when confronting unforeseen crises such as the Covid 19 pandemic, which gave a sudden boost to digital transformation in society, in order to access services which had to be digitalized for external circumstances of isolation, highlighting gaps and the need to adapt to a new context. A great barrier is represented by the lack or insufficiency of digital skills in different age groups, which underlines the fundamental importance of training to improve quick access to these skills, and adequately face one’s daily activities without running the risk of being expelled from the labor market. It is up to universities to deliver digital skills, to assess skills demand from job market to address right policies. In this work, we explore digital needs in Colombia and consider the alarming lack of skills in this sector, with its serious implications on social life. We administered a questionnaire to students of the Catholic University of Pereira (Colombia) to verify whether the high educational level they are involved in corresponds to an adequate development of digital skills. The study highlighted a gender gap in terms of perception by the students, especially related to advanced digital skills, such as the creation of new digital content, knowledge of programming languages and management of given tools.