Director of It-vest – networking universities, Michael E. Caspersen, is appointed special adviser on digital education and skills for Executive Vice President Margrethe Vestager of the European Commission.
The special adviser's role is to provide support for the upcoming Structured Dialogue on digital education and skills.
The Structured Dialogue was announced by President Ursula von der Leyen in State of the Union in September 2021 and is action no. 1 of the European Commission's Digital Education Action Plan 2021-2027. The aim of the structured dialogue is to prepare a "Council recommendation on the enabling factors for successful digital education".
In addition, as action no. 10, a "Council recommendation on improving the provision of digital skills in education and training" must be developed – among other things with a "focus on high-quality informatics education at all levels of education".
"The European Commission has a bold focus on digital transformation, and there is a realisation that a thorough digital transformation requires development of informatics competences and digital skills in the general educational system", says Michael E. Caspersen.
He has been occupied with informatics education at all educational levels, since he, in the mid 1980s, graduated with a master's degree in computer science from Aarhus University, where he is honorary professor at the Department of Computer Science.
In Denmark, Michael E. Caspersen has been involved with developing curriculum for a novel informatics subject for upper secondary school as well as a trial subject for primary and lower secondary school. For seven years, he was director of Centre for Science Education at Aarhus University, where he, among other things, helped facilitate digital transformation of university courses.
He is involved with a number of international networks and organisations working to expand informatics and digital competencies.
He is member of the Board of Informatics Europe where he is responsible for the organisations educational activities and member of the Steering Committee of the Informatics for All coalition. Recently he chaired the Informatics for All coalition's task force, that developed the Informatics Reference Framework for School. The framework, which was presented to the European Commission in March 2022, presents a coherent vision and shared terminology to provide high quality informatics education to all pupils in Europe. The framework is intended to offer high-level guidance for curriculum designers to review their focus and approach to the subject of informatics as a fundamental school discipline for the 21st century.
The role as special adviser for Executive Vice-President Margrethe Vestager is for a period of one year from April 1st 2022 and can be carried out along with the job as director of It-vest.
