Digital Competencies and Skills as Key Elements for a Competitive Labor Market

With the aim of sharing knowledge based on the premise that education is the right path to achieving the socioeconomic growth of countries and the well-being of the people, Instituto Técnico Superior del Este (ITSE) held the forum “Digital competencies and skills as a benchmark for a competitive labor sector: an approach from academia,” attended by officials of CAF—development bank of Latin America.

The event was held as part of the fifth anniversary of this institute and featured special guests, teachers, administrative staff and students, who discussed topics such as: “Study of supply and demand of human talent in digital technologies in Panama,” “Digital educational policies: trends and challenges for more relevant futures” and “Technical higher education in Latin America: challenges and recommendations for ITSE,” among others.

Milena Gómez Cedeño, Educational Manager of ITSE, stressed that the topics addressed highlight the importance of considering human capital as the most precious asset of a healthy society, the strength of modern companies and the driver of growth of any country. He also stressed that ITSE took on the challenge of being at the forefront, as they have recently done globally, not only in response to the challenges arising during the pandemic but also the major existing challenges.

According to María Teresa Lugo, Director of the Center for Public Policy, Education, Communication and Technology at the National University of Quilmes, the pandemic played a pivotal role in students in the region, who were hit hardest by the interruption of in-person education. Lugo stressed that there is a first challenge that impacts higher education, namely interrupted or intermittent academic courses, where a new challenge emerged for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which did not foresee the pandemic.

During the symposium, Raúl Katz, president of Telecom Advisory Services and also a CAF consultant, stressed that in addition to the need for technological talent, one of the major obstacles that the region has to overcome to advance digital transformation is what economists call the accumulation of intangible capital. This is a complex term, which means that for digital transformation to be effective, we not only have to acquire technology, and this is where tangibility comes in, i.e., not only buying technology, but rather emphasizing in the transformation of businesses, transforming business processes, restructuring organizations and training employees.

For José Luis Solleiro, Senior Researcher at the Institute of Applied Sciences and Technology of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), Panama must greatly influence the training of students who are about to enter the labor market, who will find work opportunities in various areas of different companies, and who are the link with that most mundane part of the country’s economy. The expert stressed that a forecast must be made on what businesses will need in the future. Solleiro also participated in the discussion as a consultant for CAF, and stressed that Panama is making significant efforts to strengthen human capital in terms of qualified personnel in digitalization, and highlighted the efforts made by the entire education sector of the country to correct the lack of professionals. 

CAF has been technically and financially supporting the implementation of ITSE and the creation of the new School of Digital Innovation with which it is expected to contribute to the development of digital skills among young people and workers and the training of human talent required to boost the technology sector in the nation.