What are the 5 skills areas within the Essential Digital Skills qualifications?

Using devices and handling information
This skills area covers a basic understanding of hardware, software, operating systems and commonly used applications. Students will develop fundamental digital skills by learning how to manage and store information, and identify and solve simple technical issues.

Creating and editing
Students will ?rst learn to create and edit documents before moving on to creating and editing other types of digital media, such as images, audio ?les and videos. Eventually, students will be taught to applications to edit, enhance and format different types of information for a range of purposes and audiences.

Communicating
The communication skills area requires students to demonstrate an understanding of electronic communications, such as email and video calls. Students will gain awareness and be able to use digital communication for a range of contexts and audiences.

Transacting
This skills area involves the ability to complete and submit an online form, comply with digital veri?cation checks, and purchase an item or service online. Eventually, students will learn to compare products against other available online options and manage their transactional account settings.

Being safe and responsible online
The ?nal skills area is to understand the importance of digital wellbeing, students will learn about being responsible online. This will involve privacy and data protection, conducting best practice online behaviour, backing up data, and understanding the psychological health risks of online activity.