Foreign language and digital competences and life-long learning

In 2000 in Lisbon, European Council defined its strategic goal: the European Union should become the most competitive and the most dynamic knowledge-based economy of the world. In 2001, a task force started to work out the key competences. They stated that people need to acquire new basic competences; these new competences should be built in curricula and should be learnt and maintained during whole life.

Competence is a complex concept: it means knowledge, skills and attitudes. The most significant competences that all people need for personal development and self-realization, and to be able to integrate into society and be employed are regarded key competences. Key competences are remarkable from the point of view of one of the three elements of life:

1. Cultural capital: fulfilling personality and life-long development to achieve personal goals, desire for continuous learning.

2. Social capital: active citizen part taking, integrating into society.

3. Human capital: being able to employed; find a decent job on the labour market.

Although key competences are different, they have the same attributes:

1. Transferability: they could be taken from one situation to the other, and they could be applied in several situations and contexts.

2. Multifunctionality: they can be used to achieve various goals, to solve different problems and tasks.

3. Prerequisites: they are prerequisites of suitable personal performance, work and study.

87

The members of the commission stated eight key competences, which are the following:

1. Communication in the mother tongue 2. Communication in foreign languages

3. Mathematical competence and basic competences in science and technology

4. Digital competence 5. Learning to learn

6. Social and civic competences

7. Sense of initiative and entrepreneurship 8. Cultural awareness and expression

(http://europa.eu/legislation_summaries/education_training_youth/lifelon g_learning/c11090_en.htm)

Although all key competences are essential to achieve personal goals and to be successful on the labour market, revising job advertisements, most employers need their would-be employees to have foreign language and digital competences. Taking into consideration foreign language competence, in Hungary most people do not have good competence or they do not have it at all. According to European statistics, about one third (34.3%) of average European citizens, regarding the 28 EU countries, does not speak any foreign languages at all, and nearly one third (29.9%) speaks two or more foreign languages. Denmark has the best statistics, where the ratio of people not speaking foreign languages is lower than 6%, while the rate of the ones who speak minimum two foreign languages is two third (67.8%). As far as the Hungarian rate is concerned, nearly two third (63.2%) of Hungarian people speak only their mother tongue, and only one tenth of people (10.9%) can speak two or more foreign languages. It could be explained by historical facts, as from 1946 to 1989 Russian language was compulsory in primary and secondary education, and most students did not like to learn it due to several political reasons, as well as the old-fashioned and unpopular grammar – translation method, which was applied in foreign language teaching. However, comparing Hungarian figures with the Polish ones, the nation, which had very similar history, the Hungarian figures are appalling: in Poland 38.1% cannot speak any foreign

88

languages, while the ration of the ones who speak minimum two foreign languages is 23.2%.

(http://appsso.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/nui/show.do?dataset=edat_aes_l24

&lang=en)

As far as the level of the best known foreign language is concerned, the Hungarian average is better than the European one. One forth (24.8%) of Hungarian people speak the best known foreign language on proficiency level, while this figure in EU average is only 20%. However, Hungarian figures are much lower than that of the best country, Luxemburg (76.7%), but higher than that of some big European nations, such as Greece (18.7%), Spain (18.6%), France (12.7%), Italy (9.7%).

(http://appsso.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/nui/show.do?dataset=edat_aes_l53

&lang=en)

Regarding the other significant key competence, the digital competence, Hungarian figures rather similar to the European average. 76.5% of European citizens use Internet, while this ratio is 72.6% in Hungary (http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats9.htm). The penetration of Internet in households is 58%, which means 2.3 million homes are wired and have internet access. But these figures can be deceptive, and could show the picture that most of the Hungarian population uses PCs and Internet. However, it must be stated that there is a huge gap between the generations, and the Internet is used especially by younger generations.

This phenomenon is clearly seen in Hungary: while 95% of the age group 15-24 use Internet, this ratio is only 49% in the age group 45-59, who still form the basis of the labour market. (Mátrai, 2014) The older generations, the baby-boom and the generation X, are considered to be digital immigrants, who met digital technology in their adolescence or young adulthood, and most of them cannot use this technology properly even nowadays. While generations Y and Z are called digital natives, who were born in the digital era, and cannot imagine their life without using digital technology - anywhere and anytime – and without being online.

According to 2013 statistics, (Mátrai 2014), 41% of Hungarian population over 15 years old, about 3.5 million people, are digitally illiterate: they do not use either a digital device (pc, tablet), or the Internet. The most typical

89

background reasons for saying ‘no’ on using digital technology are: they are not interested in it (69%), they do not know how to use it (52%), and they do not need it (46%). Considering digital illiteracy from the labour market positions’ point of view, 52 per cent of the digital illiterates finished only primary education and has no qualification at all, 56 per cent is over 60 years old, and 73 per cent is inactive or unemployed. The labour market opportunities of these groups are significantly low, all big, middle and even small enterprises have PCs and Internet access (http://pmsz.org/hu/kutatasok/friss-adatok-az-uezleti internethasznalatrol) and they require their employees to use digital technology properly.

We would like to draw attention to two significant but controversial issues.

First, all the eight key competences are significant for personal fulfilment and development, social inclusion, active citizenship and employment; and they must be acquired by children by the end of compulsory education as well as by adults throughout their lives through a process of developing and updating skills. The second, there is a huge gap between generations regarding especially digital competence, but even foreign language competence. Nearly all members of young generation use digital technology and many of them speak minimum one foreign language, mainly English, minimum on fair or even higher level. All this means that the competences of adult population should be improved, especially on the fields of foreign languages and digital technology, to be able to meet the requirements of the labour market. Improving the skills and competences of the adult generation leads to the importance of life-long learning.

According to European Strategy, Europe can stay competitive on the world market if European citizens continuously improve their skills and competences and they have innovative skills. The goal is that minimum 12.5 per cent of the population between 25 and 64 should take part in courses, pile new information, and improve their knowledge so that they could acquire all knowledge suitable for being successful on the labour market. Parallel with gaining new knowledge and competences, the secondary goal is to maintain adult people’s motivation during their whole life. Since we live in knowledge-based society, social inequality might lead to social exclusion, (Sz. Tóth, 2006) which could be reduced by involving adult people into education. In Hungary, the ratio of people taking part in adult education is significantly low, compared with other European

90

countries. Social groups that are under-represented in adult education are especially the ones that generally face social exclusion: the elderly, people with low qualification, the ones who live in disadvantaged social circumstances, and the ones who belong to ethnic minorities, especially Romani people. (Sz. Tóth, 2006)

People who generally take part in adult education can be characterized by several factors, such as gender, age, qualification. On the one hand, there is no significant difference between genders taking part in adult education.

On the other hand, a significant difference can be found among age groups: most people who take part in adult education are from 19 to 24.

The rate of participating in adult education remarkably reduces if people are over 50, and the lowest ratio can be found among people over 60, especially in formal education. Older people do not think it is worth investing time and money into education as it will not have any benefits on the labour market. Based on the level of qualification, people with higher qualification are more eager to go to courses and take part in adult education. In most European countries, immigrants are involved in adult education, but there number is much fewer than that of original inhabitants. However, this problem is not very up-to date in Hungary.

Except for all these factors, there are some personal and professional ones as well, such as take part in training regarding their job, adapt to technological changes, improve or expend skills, achieve promotion. (Sz.

Tóth 2006)

There several purposes of adult learning. The first one is to refresh adult people’s knowledge and competences continuously through life-long learning; the second one is to involve disadvantaged people of the society into adult education; while the third one is to adjust adult learning programs to the requirements of the labour market. (Sz. Tóth 2006)

91

2. A national project for improving foreign language and digital