# ICT Skills in the Deployment of 21 st Century Skills:
## 1 Introduction  
In their 2012 analysis of frameworks on 21 st century skills, [PERSON] and [PERSON] [1] concluded that 21 st century skills involve a large set of different skills: communication, collaboration, information and communication technology (ICT) literacy, social and/or cultural awareness, creativity, critical thinking, problem-solving, and the capacity to develop relevant and high-quality outcomes. They claim that at the core of all reviewed frameworks on 21 st century skills were ICT skills and that these skills were associated with important competencies, such as managing, evaluating, and producing information in digital contexts, i.e., many of which require the cognitive abilities to think, reason, and conclude. ICT skills refer to the skills that are needed in today's digitized society in relation to information and communication technology. A lot of information is transmitted via ICT, so ICT skills are needed and can take effect in digital problem-solving, computer-based assessment, communication at the workplace, and several other contexts of our daily lives [2]. For example, in the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC), ICT skills were needed to navigate the technology-based administration of the cognition-based problem-solving assessment. Participants had to be able to navigate the platform, switch between pages, select responses, use drag-and-drop, etc., to successfully solve the tasks [3]. [PERSON] and colleagues [4] suggest that 21 st century skills and ICT skills are interrelatedand can take the form of ICT 21 st century skills (or 21 st century digital skills), i.e., subskills that invite a digital component. They define seven such skills, i.e., technical, information, communication, collaboration, critical thinking, creative, and problem-solving skills. They argue that these skills can be supported using ICT, and ICT skills can be fostered in the context of these 21 st century skills. Moreover, cognitive abilities were identified as an important prerequisite for the acquisition of many of these skills [4]. Moreover, as ICT skills are essential in adult life, it is argued that they should be supported in school curricula, and undoubtedly many efforts have been made to integrate ICT skills in the context of 21 st century education into secondary and even primary school curricula [5; 6]. For example, the Innovative Technologies for an Engaging Classroom (iTEC) project supports technological innovation in 19 European countries, and many governments have made the integration of ICT skills into schools mandatory, often in the context of 21 st century skills education (e.g., Australia, Belgium, Ireland, Norway, and South Korea [7]; UK [8]). For example, UK school curricula mandate that primary school children should understand simple algorithms and should be able to solve problems by writing such simple algorithms themselves. Moreover, they are required to acquire technical skills, such as understanding how to handle computers. However, young children who do not yet attend primary or secondary school are often neglected when it comes to providing them with ICT skills. Potential reasons range from the assumption that children younger than 6 years are unable to think in analogies and, therefore, cannot understand the complex processes involved in digital technologies [9] to children's cognitive and physiological development, such as the distinction between 2D and 3D vision, and potential health threats [10] as well as to a deep-rooted societal apprehension when it comes to young children using such technologies at a comparably early age [11]. Arguments against the implementation of ICT skills in early childhood education and care (ECEC; 3 to 5 or 6-year-old children, depending on the country) usually view the use of ICT devices as a threat to children's playful learning and development, e.g., impaired emotional and social development [12].