Increasingly shorter knowledge cycles as well as new technological and social developments demand continuous learning becoming the norm for everyone. The paper finds a significant gap in key future skills and a widening of the skills gap over the life cycle - with major social consequences.
The High-Tech forum attests that Germany's work and learning culture as a whole is geared insufficiently towards lifelong learning. The foundation for the necessary cultural change must be laid in initial education. Important signals could come from an individual right to continuing education. A key recommendation is to put digital skills on an equal footing with basic skills of reading, writing, and arithmetic. Among other things, the committee advocates comprehensive promotion of digital teaching skills in all areas of education, as well as increased value creation and appreciation of human competence in companies, support, especially for SMEs, in matters of intellectual property and patent law, and more knowledge transfer between industry and research.
The High-Tech Forum is composed of 21 experts from industry, science, and society and advises the German Federal government on the implementation of the High-Tech Strategy 2025. A new impulse paper was discussed at the recent meeting of the High-Tech Forum and published after the meeting.
