In Latvia, residents are showing little interest in participating in a digital skills development project, in which local authorities are organizing courses to improve digital skills, which means that the project's goal of training 40,000 residents will not be achieved. This was stated on Tuesday at a meeting of the Subcommittee on Reducing Inequality of the Social and Labor Affairs Commission of the Saeima by Liene Priede, head of the Digital Engagement and Skills Department of the Ministry of Intellectual Administration and Regional Development (VARAM).
The project will last until the end of April next year. The training is divided into three levels. At the first level, participants can acquire basic digital skills, at the second level, they can master basic self-service digital skills, and at the third level, they can acquire intermediate skills.
So far, 8,282 people have participated in the training. At the beginning of the training, a survey was conducted among local authorities to determine whether it would be feasible to involve 40,000 residents in the training. The survey showed that the interest from residents is not that high. VARAM has already negotiated with interested institutions and informed the European Commission that the set goals will be reduced, along with the funding used.
Lizma Kalve, a representative of the Latvian Federation of Pensioners, stated at a commission meeting that much of the training "goes to waste" if there is no opportunity to apply knowledge in practice in everyday life, specifically if elderly people do not have computers. Kalve mentioned a budget proposal supported last year to allocate 56,500 euros to the Latvian Federation of Pensioners for the purchase of computer equipment. The federation surveyed its member organizations about how many computers they needed. "Two hundred member organizations tearfully asked us to provide 500 computers," Kalve said, adding that the allocated funds could only cover 5% of their needs.
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