Edinburgh Napier University

  Digital technologies and skills are critical to economic growth and embedded in everyday life 1. This paper presents a work-in-progress study that examines the effect of education policy on digital skills within Scotland. Through literature analysis, exploring education policy over the last 10 years, this policy study found that despite numerous attempts and frameworks in place by the Scottish government, the digital technologies skills gap remains a challenge 2. Although the pandemic is seen as a catalyst behind the fast adoption of digital technologies across institutions and the population, it also slowed down the progress of Scotland's digitalisation and implementation of the Government's frameworks 3 due to delayed infrastructure developments during this time. Over the last 10 years, the criteria and key areas included under the digital skills banner have altered significantly making progress difficult to track in an important area of policy development. Paper