IT Fitness Test: Young People Digitally Literate, But Struggle with Teamwork

Bratislava, 25 October (TASR) - The largest testing of digital skills in the region has shown that young people are digitally literate, but they still struggle with teamwork, data interpretation and the use of office tools, according to the latest results of the IT Fitness Test presented earlier this week by the Digital Coalition initiative along with state representatives. "Digital education now forms the basis of a country's competitiveness. If Slovakia is to keep up with the most developed states, young people must be given more than just access to technology. We must guide them towards understanding creativity and responsibility in using it," said Investments, Regional Development and Informatisation Minister Samuel Migal (Independent). The average success rate of Slovak students aged 7 to 16 reached 55.1 percent, with the best results seen in the categories of 'Internet' (64.1 percent) and 'Security' (67.7 percent). The lowest score was in the category of 'Office Tools' (39.1 percent). Those who participated in the secondary school version of the test achieved the best average result among the Visegard Four (V4) countries (the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia), at 58.7 percent. Respondents aged 15 and above were most successful in the 'Security' category (69.2 percent), while the weakest results were again seen in the 'Office Tools' category (49.2 percent). "This test has been set up in a way so that its optimal success rate is around 50–60 percent," explained Digital Coalition chairman Mario Lelovsky, adding that "these results are good, I would even say very good". According to the Digital Coalition, this shows that Slovak students perform well in recognising security risks and in simple searches for information, but there's room for improvement in identifying links and patterns, handling unfamiliar situations, teamwork and comprehending text and data. More than 205,000 respondents from the V4 countries took part in the 14th IT Fitness Test, with the highest number of participants (70,000) seen in Poland. In Slovakia, the test was completed by more than 66,000 people, of whom over 60,000 were primary and secondary school students and more than 5,000 were teachers. jrg/df/ko