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China to improve its people's digital skills

wuzhenwic.org Updated: 2021-05-26

As the digital economy, driven by information technology, is developing rapidly in China, the country highly values popularization of digital skills among its people.

The Cyberspace Administration recently released a report on development of Digital China, saying that China gained the world's second-largest digital economic aggregate during its 13th Five-Year Plan period (2016-20), making digitalization a key to boosting high-quality economic growth. The GDP attributable to the added value of core digital industries was 7.8 percent in 2020.

Statistics of the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) indicate that the number of Chinese netizens has reached 989 million, accounting for one-fifth of the global amount. The user scale of various internet-based applications for business trade, public service and internet entertainment has also been growing.

Experts say that improving digital skills will help people benefit from digital technological achievement and promote use of public resource in remote areas.

The Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security (MOHRSS) recently released a plan to increase digital skill education and training to the public to help more people reap the promise of digital development.

Pan Helin, executive director of the Digital Economy Academy of Zhongnan University of Economics and Law, said that digital capacity refers to solving problems by using digital technologies and relevant tools. He said that an all-people digital skill education and training activity can help promote industrial digitalization and digital industrialization, and make consumers more capable of using more kinds of products and able to experience better digital services.

CNNIC's statistics show that there were nearly 260 million netizens in their 50s and above and 160 million under 20 years old in China by the end of 2020.

With different backgrounds and learning capacities, there is unevenness in digital capacity among these groups. Experts said that the plan of digital skill education will play a role in minimizing the gap and help people from all walks of life benefit from digital services.

Pan added that the training should target real demands and scenario design and different teaching methods are also needed to reach different people.

In addition, the need for talents with digital capacity has grown in recent years.

The China Academy of Information and Communications Technology recently released a report on newly created digital employment, occupations and positions, which indicates that more than 36 million jobs were based on WeChat in 2020, a year-on-year growth of 24.4 percent.

According to a report on new job online learning platform development jointly released by the China Employment Training Technical Instruction Center of the MOHRSS and Alibaba's livestreaming platform Dingding, occupations like digital managers, artificial intelligence engineering technicians and Internet of Things technicians draw the most user attention.

Professional digital technological talents are at this time urgently needed in the market as the technical skill training of these new occupations is still in an initial stage. Therefore, the plan released by the MOHRSS mentions methods for improving policies, strengthening talent cultivation, promoting the talent assessment system, holding vocational skills competitions and enhancing basic capacity for talent training.

In terms of cultivating digital talents, Pan suggested that colleges and universities should deepen students' understanding of digital technologies and cultivate talents in accordance with the colleges' advantages. Last but not least, talent cultivation systems should be oriented to the market and enterprises' needs to help improve the unbalanced situation of the current labor market.

Setting professional standards and specification for innovative digital technical talents is also an indispensable way for talent development.

Yu Guoming, executive dean of the School of Journalism and Communication of Beijing Normal University, pointed out that a netizen is the basic object and the primary unit of the internet world and their digital capacity is the future of the internet and digitalization.

He added that progress in the digital society is based on digital technologies the development of which calls for digital skill. Improving people's digital technical skills therefore plays a crucial role in social development.

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A family doctor discusses wearing a mask at the community clinical service center of the Dapu Bridge block in Huangpu district, Shanghai, with local residents through livestreaming. [Photo/People's Daily]


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