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Sri Lankans accessing the internet via smartphones is more than triple that of people using desktop computers or laptops for the same task, latest data by the Census and Statistics Department showed yesterday with more rural users outstripping their urban counterparts.
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.
What was additionally interesting was that only 19.8% of the urban population used smartphones to access the internet but this number climbed to 51.1% in rural areas. Smartphone use was highest (10% or higher) amongst the 15-29-year-olds but it was also high (10%) amongst the 40-49-year category. Internet use also predictably far outstripped use of email for smartphone users.
“Among the unemployed, aged (20-24) group shows highest computer literate population percentage (74%). Annual results reveal that among unemployed many have at least some ICT skills. Even among the group aged 40-69 every one out of three is computer literate (28.9%) in 2019. When the digital literacy is considered 46% (aged 5 -69) has digital literacy. Digital literacy is higher than computer literacy for all disaggregated levels, showing the drift from personal computer to smartphones/tablets.”
“The survey results show an increase of 3.2% points from 2016 to 2019. Urban sector shows the highest computer literacy rate (43.6%) among residential sectors. Computer literacy rate for Rural and Estate sectors are 29% and 12.6% respectively. Among the provinces the highest level of computer literacy is reported from the Western province (44.1%). The lowest computer literacy is reported from the Eastern province (15.7%),” the department added.
Overall internet use had grown from 26.8% in 2018 to 30.3% last year and there was also a smaller growth from 10.2% email use in 2018 to 11.9% in 2019. The biggest use of digital literacy skills were used to follow university courses and do school work with 57.4% of urban and 53.1% of rural sector use being tabulated for this purpose.
Other high uses included following private training courses, for employment activities as well as self-use and staying connected to family and friends. Only 6% of those who are computer literate in Sri Lanka received their training from a Government centre.
In 2019, at least one computer was available in 22% of households in the country. That is about one out of every five households owns either a desktop or a laptop computer. This percentage is 38% in urban sector and Rural and Estate sector show 19.7% and 4.6% respectively.
When the provinces are considered the highest availability is in the Western Province (34.3%) while the lowest availability is reported from the Uva (11.8%). Percentage of availability of desktop or laptop computer at a household vary between 22-23% between 2016 to 2019 period.
Percentage of Computer Literate population (Computer Literacy) over the survey periods has been gradually increasing. Overall Computer Literacy reported in 2019 for Sri Lanka is 30.8%. The Computer literacy among males (32.9%) is 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 groups.
The survey results reveal that higher the level of education higher the computer literacy. The group with A/L or above level of education shows the highest computer literacy rate (72.6%). Also computer literacy is higher among those who are literate in English language (71.5%).
Computer literacy among the employed population who are aware of computer in Sri Lanka is around 65.1 % in 2019. The positions such as senior officials and Managers (76.1%), Professionals (87.9%), Technical and Associate professionals (85.1%), Clerks and Clerical support workers (90.9%) have higher computer literacy rates. Also, even among the individuals engage in elementary occupations 27.8% are computer literate.
