Computer literacy rate highest in urban sector, lowest in estates

According to a national survey conducted by the Department of Census and Statistics, overall computer literacy reported in the first half of 2016 for Sri Lanka was 27.5%. The survey results show an increase of 0.9% from the first half of 2015 to the first half of 2016.

In 2016, at least one computer was available in 22.5% of the country’s households. This means more than one out of every five households owns either a desktop or a laptop computer, the survey said.

This percentage is 35.3% in the urban sector while the rural and estate sectors show 20.7% and 6.4% respectively. The highest availability is in the Western Province (34.8%) while the lowest availability is reported in the Eastern Province (12.2%).

The urban sector shows the highest computer literacy rate (38.5%) among residential sectors. The computer literacy rate for the rural and estate sectors are 26.1% and 9.9% respectively.

Among the provinces, the highest level of computer literacy is reported from the Western Province (38.5%) while the lowest percentage is reported from the Eastern Province (13.4%).

According to the findings of the survey, computer literacy among males is 29.3% compared to 26.0% among females.

Youths from the ages of 15-19 years show the highest computer literacy rate at 60.6% among all other age groups. The 50 years and above group shows the lowest computer literacy rates.

Computer literacy among the employed population who are aware of computers in Sri Lanka was around 64.8% during the first half of 2016 and the positions such as managers, senior officials and legislators (76.1%), professionals (90.3%), technical and associate professionals (88.7%) and clerks and clerical support workers (91.5%) have higher computer literacy. However, even among individuals engaged in elementary occupations, 27.3% are computer literate.

The majority of those who are computer literate have received training from private institutions or at schools or universities. The training received from the Government was comparatively low (6.0%). However, in the estate sector it was about 5.7%.

The Colombo District shows the highest percentage of internet usage with 30.1% of the population using the internet while the Trincomalee District shows the lowest percentage (3.3%).