Basic ICT: Essential Digital Skills

## Course overview Most digital skills courses teach you where the buttons are in one particular program. Then the program updates, the buttons move, and the learner is back where they started believing they are "not good with computers". This course teaches the ideas underneath. What a file actually *is* and where it goes. Why a password manager is safer than a memorable password. How to tell a real message from a scam. What happens when you click "save" — and why you sometimes cannot find the thing afterwards. Understand those and you can work out any program. That is the difference between using a computer and being confident with one. Nothing here assumes prior knowledge, and nothing here treats you as though the difficulty is your fault. Modern software is genuinely confusing and it is designed by people who forgot what not knowing feels like. ## Who this course is for Adults with little or no confidence using digital technology: people returning to work, those whose job has become digital around them, anyone who avoids online tasks and asks family members to do them, and people preparing for an Essential Digital Skills Qualification who want a gentle introduction first. If you already use email, save files and shop online comfortably, this course is below your level. ## How the course is taught Five modules matching the five skill areas of the national standards. Each has three lessons and a knowledge check. Every lesson ends with a **Check your understanding** task you do on your own device, because digital skills are learned by doing rather than by reading. Instructions are given by principle first and by button second, so they still make sense after the next update. ## Assessment Five module knowledge checks and a final assessment at a 70% pass mark, unlimited attempts, with plain-English feedback on every question. ## Recognition and scope — including a free alternative you should know about **This course is not an Ofqual-regulated qualification.** It is an EduQan certificate of completion, verifiable by any employer through our public credential check. **You should know this before buying:** adults in England aged 19 and over with no or low digital skills are entitled to study an **Essential Digital Skills Qualification (EDSQ) free of charge** under the government's statutory digital entitlement, introduced in August 2020. These are Ofqual-regulated qualifications offered by awarding organisations including **BCS, Pearson, OCN London and TLM**, usually through a further education college or adult education provider. If you are eligible, **that free qualification is worth more than this course** and we would rather you knew. Contact your local college and ask about the digital entitlement. This course is genuinely useful if you are **not eligible** for the funding, if you want **self-paced learning at home** rather than a timetabled class, if you want to **build confidence before** joining a class, or if you want the underpinning understanding alongside a qualification. Those are honest reasons. "It replaces the free qualification" is not one. The course is built around the DfE's **national standards for essential digital skills**, which were revised on **15 July 2026** and now describe skills across five levels. This course sits at the foundation end of that framework. ## Progression An EDSQ at Entry Level or Level 1 through your local college. After that, our Data Analysis and Power BI courses build on these foundations, and Customer Service or CV Writing put the digital skills to work.