Digital Inclusion for Parents: Preliminary Results of the Digital Academy Project

The project "Academia Digital para Pais" began in a pandemic context, in an effort of the Ministry of Education and the private sector, aiming at helping the digital-struggling families. The COVID-19 pandemic led schools to a sudden closure, highlighting the challenges families faced, both in terms of access to technologies, and in terms of the digital skills needed to participate in a digitalized world. The objectives of the project were twofold: i) provide parents/tutors with digital skills to help their children, during remote teaching; ii) provide parents/tutors with digital skills crucial for integration in society. We intended to study the project, from design to implementation, using a quantitative approach, aimed at: identifying the parents/tutors' self-perceptions of the digital competences developed; determining the participants' perception of the level of attainment of the goals of the project; measuring the satisfaction of the parents/tutors involved in the project; and lastly exploring differences in the self-perceived digital competence according to their level of satisfaction. The results reveal high levels of satisfaction which, combined with the positive self-perception in the development of their digital competences, is a strong indicator of the potential of these initiatives in the empowerment of citizens, concurring to their social inclusion.