The Employment and Training Corporation (ETC) carried out 1,160 European Computer Driving Licence (ECDL) tests on 313 people between October 2003 and September 2004 and achieved a success rate of 92 per cent, the corporation has said in a statement.
Non-registrants undertook 851 tests while 309 were taken by ETC-registered unemployed. More ECDL tests were taken by women than men, both among non-
registrants and registrants. A total of 140 people completed the seven modules and received the full ECDL Certificate.
The ETC was one of the first organisations to offer the general public the possibility to sit for the European Computer Driving Licence (ECDL), and acquire this unique form of IT qualification by offering courses, which lead to ECDL testing.
In this respect, the ETC was a leading organisation in recognising the need brought about by technological innovations and in so doing, has given the labour force another tool to upgrade its skills in new information and communication technologies (ICT).
As the only pan-European certificate, the ECDL is recognised in the European Union and in many other countries, thus assuring holders of the ECDL Certificate that their skills and competencies are recognised all over Europe.
In Malta, large organisations have begun using the ECDL as part of their system of “employee career development”. In the last financial year, the ETC has helped many organisations achieve these goals.
For the employees, the ECDL has been something to plan for and achieve in order to fulfil their organisational requirements for IT skills expertise. Organisations wanting to train their workforce needed to ensure that the money they spent on training courses was going to be well-spent. Usually, at the end of a training course in computing applications there is no sound and independent proof that the trainee has actually learned.
Training competence has been achieved through the process of ECDL testing at the ETC’s accredited test centre and not through an internal test.
The results have proved that ECDL Certificate-holders had the skills and knowledge required to perform efficiently and effectively within the workplace using computer applications and tools that are required by modern organisations.