Spanish students handle computers better than their European peers

Spanish teenagers know how to handle computers and other electronic devices slightly better than their peers in European schools and significantly better than the average students from other continents. This is certified by a global study that measures the degree of digital competence of 13-year-old students, in Spain those in the second year of ESO, for which 11,700 students from 508 public and private schools across all autonomous communities were examined, with additional information provided by 6,200 of their teachers.

The 'International Study on Digital Competence' (ICILS), conducted in 34 countries by the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA), explores to what extent these teenagers are prepared to study, work, and live in a digital world, assessing their ability to use computers to gather information, research, create content, and communicate in different contexts. Spain is participating in the ICILS for the first time, which conducts this global check on digital education every five years since 2013.

The study rates the digital performance of Spanish students at 495 points, meaning that 55% of them have a medium or high level when it comes to handling all types of computers. According to this figure, they are still quite far from the level of training of 13-year-olds in South Korea, who lead the list by 45 points, which could be equivalent to a school year. However, their overall level is good, and they are two points above the average of their EU peers and no less than 19 points better than the average of the 34 countries in the study.

With this score, the level of computer knowledge of Spanish teenagers is equivalent to that of Germans, French, or Italians. The communities with the best results are Catalonia, Madrid, Asturias, and Castile and León, with between 12 and 23 points more than the Spanish average, which also improves, but less so, in La Rioja, Canary Islands, and Cantabria.

There are two elements that favor the good performance of Spanish students: many of their homes have a quality internet connection and have at least two computers, but the factors that really make the most difference, for better or worse, are the parents' income and status, the family's origin, and the student's gender. Students from more affluent families achieve 69 more points in computer skills than the poorest (a year and a half), Spanish students score 28 more points than those from immigrant families, and girls have a huge advantage over their peers. They are no less than 19 points more skilled than boys with computers or tablets.

The three factors are repeated to a greater or lesser extent in the 34 countries analyzed, but Spain is one of the states where these social imbalances are smaller, demonstrating that it has an educational system with high equity, capable of partially compensating for these inequalities of origin. This is evidenced by the fact that the drop in digital skills among the poorest teenagers is ten points less pronounced than the EU average and five points lower than in the group of countries studied.

Spanish second-year ESO students also stand out in another area. They make more responsible use of electronic devices than their counterparts elsewhere. One of the elements that help them is that their parents are among those who impose the most screen time limitations on their children on school days. Almost one in six Spanish teenagers has parental controls on school days, which is 17 points more than the EU average and 14 points more than in other countries. On holidays and weekends, the limitations are relaxed, but still, 32% have them, five points more than in Europe. Despite the greater parental supervision, up to 40% of Spanish teenagers use screens daily without control, and 68% do so on holidays.

The second factor that makes Spanish students have a higher quality digital handling is that they surpass the European average of teenagers who are trained in school for safe and responsible use of electronic equipment and the internet. The difference here is not as high, but they are one point better than the average.

The Ministry of Education believes that these figures should be even better in the study to be published in the next five years because the students who took these tests in 2023 were trained with the curricula of the old educational law, the Lomce, in which digital competence had less weight than in the new regulation. The Lomloe, the law that began to be implemented in 2021, has these contents as one of its eight key competencies, so it has launched specific subjects and programming teachings, while also providing specific training in the discipline among teachers.