History of the European Computer Driving Licence - History of Computing: Learning from the Past - page 141

5 The Scope of the ECDL Potential Population 1997 - 2010

Who should benefit from ECDL? The potential users for the ECDL products and
services could be seen from several viewpoints, such as geographical, by population
sectors, and specifically the work force. The following statistics are taken from the
plans presented to the European Commission in 1997 on the setting up of ECDL [20].

5.1 Geographical Scope

The market for ECDL was those countries which were defined as being European by
virtue of their membership of the Council of Europe. The Member Societies of CEPIS
were present in 17 of those countries in 1996 with a total of some 250,000 computer
professionals. The CEPIS Member Societies represented channels to a major part of
the overall market. CEPIS was represented in the following countries: Austria,
Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Neth-
erlands, Norway, Poland, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and UK. The potential market
was all of the wider Europe. This included the then 15 Member States of the EU, the
three Associated States (Norway, Liechtenstein and Iceland), Switzerland, and the
then twelve applicant states (Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Poland, Hungary, the Czech
Republic, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Romania, Slovenia, Cyprus, Malta). Altogether this
added up to 31 countries, which was the number of countries that were addressed in
the proposed business and implementation plans for the ECDL at that time.

5.2 Population Sectors

The total population in the 31 countries was about 500 million. Divided in sectors, the
numbers were very roughly as follows:

1 the employed work force 200 millions
2 the education sector 100
3 the unemployed 25
4 the socially disadvantaged 15

5 people outside the work force 160 (not unemployed)

ECDL was relevant to the all users throughout the population. However, it was felt
that the Business Plan had to focus on selected parts of the total market. In accordance
with the initial objectives, the first ECDL Business Plan primarily addressed the needs
and potential in the European workforce.

5.3 The Work Force Sector

The workforce definition varied considerably across the geographical area in ques-
tion. Very generally, one could have used the following assumptions:

Workforce (employed, 40 % of Total Population) 200 million
Non-manual workers (60 %) 120 million
Knowledge/information workers (50 % of above)

60 million