Digital Functional Skills Launching 2023
Want to help learners acquire essential digital skills to use in their workplace?
Want to provide digital skills for everyday life?
Want to enable anyone of any age to gain basic digital skills?
BCS are currently working on the new Digital Functional Skills qualifications that will be launching in August 2023. These will replace the existing Functional Skills in ICT.
Our assessment strategy, qualification specifications and sample assessment materials are currently being reviewed by Ofqual.
Key Points:
• Available at Entry Level 3 and Level 1
• One assessment per qualification
• Knowledge and practical skills tested
• Online testing
• Automated marking
• Pass/fail
• Resits possible
• Available on a range of devices including chromebooks
Why BCS?
As the digital specialists, BCS are committed to ensuring everyone has access to basic skills to live and work in the digital age. We’ll support you with webinars and help you market these courses to your customers and work with you to ensure the smooth delivery of these programmes
FAQ's
The Digital Functional Skills qualifications will be available to learners aged 16+
The Entry 3 and Level 1 Digital Functional Skills qualifications will replace the existing Functional Skills Qualifications in ICT from August 2023.
You do, yes. Partnering with us is easy – we support you throughout the accreditation process and beyond with a dedicated account manager to guide you through every stage of the process and answer your questions. We have multiple exam formats to suit your business. There’s also a quarterly training provider forum. Request a call back from our team below.
The Entry Level 3 and Level 1 Digital Functional Skills qualifications will sit alongside the Entry Level 3 and Level 1 Essential Digital Skills qualifications. The qualifications differ in the following ways:
- The Digital Functional Skills qualifications will focus on the same skills areas as the Essential Digital Skills qualifications. These skills areas are using devices and handling information, creating and editing, communicating, transacting and being safe and responsible online. However, the specific assessment content is slightly different between the Digital Functional Skills and Essential Digital Skills qualifications.
- The Digital Functional Skills qualifications will include both life and work examples, making them appropriate for those looking to improve their digital skills in both life and work. The BCS Essential Digital Skills qualifications focus on work and do not include life examples.
- The Digital Functional Skills qualifications consist of a single 90 minute online, on-demand test that the learners will sit within the Skillsbox platform. The test will assess the learner’s competence across each skill area. The test will have a total of 60 questions that include 1-, 2- and 3-mark questions with a possible 100 marks available. Each assessment will be comprised of Knowledge questions (multiple choice, multiple response, drag and drop, ordering) and Practical Digital Skills questions (simulated activities that include hotspot and advanced hotspot questions). The Essential Digital Skills qualifications contain two tests (Knowledge and Skills). Therefore, if you have a cohort of confident learners, or learners who are working to a particular time constraint you could consider the Digital Functional Skills qualifications.
- The Practical Digital Skills questions in the Digital Functional Skills tests are simulated activities. The tasks in the simulations reflect a similar design to Windows and Microsoft Programmes. BCS designed the tasks this way as research has shown that in 2021, 83% businesses were using Microsoft Office. For learners to progress into employment they will need to understand these programmes. Because of this approach, it means that the in-application feature (Word, Excel, and Presentations) is not required for the Digital Functional Skills tests. This means that the Digital Functional Skills tests can be accessed using Chromebooks. The BCS Essential Digital Skills qualification tests use the in-application feature and cannot be accessed using Chromebooks.
