Bridging the digital literacy gap

The world is increasingly becoming an interconnected one and Sri Lanka is moving alongside that trend. However, one challenge that remains is bridging the gender gap between men and women when it comes to digital literacy. 

The Computer Literacy Statistics (2019) released by the Census and Statistics Department showed that 72.2% of Sri Lankans between the ages of 5-69 years preferred to log onto the internet using smartphones than desktops or laptops (24.1%), tablets (2%) and mobile phone (1.7%). Overall 39.2% of men and 33% of women used smartphones. 

Computer literacy among males (32.9%) was higher than that of females (28.9%) in 2019. Young youths (aged 15-19 years) show the highest computer literacy rate (64.9%) among all other age group. Interestingly smart phone use was higher in rural areas, than urban and internet access was largely used for education and work related purposes. 

Internet access offers a powerful avenue for people around the world to assert their right to education, and to claim social, economic and political opportunities for empowerment. But half the world’s population is still offline. Most of these 3.9 billion people are women, and most are in developing countries with a significant number even being in urban areas.

Not knowing how to use the internet continues to be a significant barrier to digital inclusion, particularly for women and girls. Among the urban poor, women are 1.6 times more likely to cite lack of know-how as a barrier to their internet access and use. Although ICTs are a powerful tool for developing literacy skills and accessing education, progress on providing internet access and digital literacy training in public schools has been painfully slow. The Government should act urgently to prioritise delivering digital literacy training as a critical component of school literacy curriculum across all education levels, along with reading and writing. 

They can do this by putting digital skills and education (particularly for women and girls) front and centre of policy agendas. Programs should be designed to boost the confidence and interest of girls, and focus on empowerment and rights, not just technical abilities. Providing internet connectivity to all public schools and invest in ICT training and support for teachers. Replacing expensive proprietary textbooks and learning materials with Open Educational Resources, pairing digital literacy with digital security and information literacy, equipping students to protect themselves online and to create and critique (not just consume) content are some of the other ways. 

Analysing and addressing reasons for high female drop-out from STEM subjects and enhance post-secondary STEM opportunities, especially for girls and young women is another important need. Taking steps to eradicate the gender gap in access to higher and tertiary education by ensuring that women have equal access to tertiary education opportunities is important and in Sri Lanka English knowledge is also an aspect to consider. Sri Lanka has done well in reading and writing literacy and it’s time to extend this success to digital literacy for a prosperous future. 

This is especially necessary in the COVID-19 era when education has shifted online. There are also entrepreneurial and other opportunities that could be had to encourage women to enter the formal workforce or improve their social mobility.