History of the European Computer Driving Licence - History of Computing: Learning from the Past - page 135

ECDL, the major milestones and the support given initially by the European Commis-
sion and later by Governments, industry and educational bodies.
1.2 The Links between CEPIS and IFIP
The International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP) is a non-governmental,
non-profit umbrella organization for national societies working in the field of informa-
tion processing. IFIP was established in 1960, under the auspices of UNESCO, as a
result of the first World Computer Congress held in Paris in 1959. This provided a
forum for persons involved in the Information Technology area to meet and share ideas
[3]. In the 1980s, some of the IFIP member societies based in Europe felt that there
was a need for a European organization to meet the local needs of the region and
CEPIS was established in 1989 by 8 European informatics societies, CEPIS has since
grown to represent over 300,000 informatics professionals in 33 countries. There are
many common member societies in IFIP and CEPIS and they communicate and share
research and interests at their respective events and meetings [4].
The first area of focus for CEPIS was the promotion and development of informa-
tion and communications technology (ICT) skills across Europe. CEPIS set out to
work closely with the European Commission in order to address the needs of the
European Community and meetings were held with Directorates General in the Euro-
pean Commission to establish the areas which CEPIS should pursue. An early venture
for CEPIS was the European Informatics Skills Structure which set out to define the
skills for ICT professionals in a structured format which could be adopted throughout
Europe [5]. This work commenced with the founding of CEPIS in 1989 and work
continued until 1996. The project which created ECDL started in 1995.
2 The Information Society and Digital Literacy in the 1990s
In 1990, 23 million European households owned a PC and this rose to over 40 million
in 1994. However the proportion of European households with a PC was significantly
lower than the USA and there were fewer multi-media PCs or those linked to a com-
munications network. Statistics also showed that the speed of adoption of the new
technologies highlighted cultural and linguistic differences between Northern and
Southern Europe and between the US and Europe [6]. At that time in the United States
there were 34 PCs per hundred citizens with the European figure at 10 per hundred.
Advances in information technology substantially changed the workplace in Europe
in the mid-nineties. Over 72% of office workers had a PC or equivalent on their desks
and used it as part of their work. At that time there was concern about the future of
employment, skills and technology. According to Cortada in 1998 “Each year, on
average, more than 10% of all jobs disappear and are replaced by different jobs in new
processes, in new enterprises, generally requiring new, higher or broader skills. There
is a much slower pace on the supply side in the acquisition of new skills.” [7] He sug-
gested that within 10 years people in employment would be using new technology with
out of date skills.
The area of unemployment was recognized as of vital importance, creating a
need for retraining. The European Union 1996 report “Living and working in the