Digital Literacy is Changing the Face of Education in Underserved Communities

How are you reading this article — on a screen or printed page?

Chances are it wasn’t delivered to your doorstep in a newspaper. You probably had to connect to the Internet, navigate to this site, and read it in a digital format.

Of course, the process may have been effortless for you, but it can seem daunting to individuals who never learned how to use the Internet, or who have never handled a digital device.

Today, let’s take a look at digital literacy and its impact: the benefits of possessing it as well as the repercussions of lacking it.

Studies show that a significant digital literacy gap exists between privileged and underserved communities, which leads to disparities in job prospects, self-empowerment, and life outcomes.

Digital literacy is both an important issue and an opportunity in the modern world…

In 2015, the United Nations laid out 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to be achieved by the year 2030.

The SDGs, ranging from ending poverty and hunger to providing clean water and quality education, are widely cited as the blueprint for international development.

Goal 4 states:

“Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all.”

Target 4.4 further specifies that by 2030, they will “substantially increase the number of youth and adults who have relevant skills, including technical and vocational skills, for employment, decent jobs and entrepreneurship.”

The measure of success for Target 4.4 is the “Proportion of youth and adults with information and communications technology (ICT) skills…”

In layman’s terms…

Digital literacy is a recognized and essential target that will enable the success of our future generations!

If literacy is the ability to read and write, and media literacy is the capacity to understand, evaluate, and critically analyze what we watch, hear, and read, then digital literacy is the next step toward understanding and processing information.

So much of our lives are now lived online that the definition of digital literacy must be extremely broad in order to encompass every possible aspect.

The American Library Association defines digital literacy as “the ability to use information and communication technologies to find, evaluate, create, and communicate information, requiring both cognitive and technical skills.”

Let’s deconstruct this definition by considering just a few of the questions one asks oneself when using digital devices: Is this a trustworthy site? How can I safely share pictures and videos on social media? How can I use Google to find the information I need today?

How can I use a combination of desktop applications, email, and collaboration software to be more productive at work?

In short, digital literacy spans from the fundamentals of operating and typing on a computer to such nuanced knowledge as netiquette (the unspoken rules of etiquette on the Internet).

Digital literacy offers new opportunities to students in remote areas of the world…

Life in underdeveloped areas of the world tends to revolve around human labor, in contrast to the service-based economies of the developed world.

Simultaneously, disadvantaged people around the world are increasingly gaining access to mobile phones and the Internet.

This interesting juxtaposition is due in large part to a phenomenon known as leapfrogging: for instance, developing countries are able to “leapfrog” to constructing cell phone towers without passing through the landline phone stage like today’s developed countries did in the past.

Leapfrogging can be an exciting pathway to development and individual empowerment, but only if it is accompanied by adequate instruction in digital literacy for today’s generation.

This condition faces three important challenges:

• A lack of trained instructors to provide the education to children

• A lack of the requisite resources for the children to effectively learn

• A lack of available jobs to incentivize both the instruction and learning of digital literacy

The first challenge, a lack of trained instructors, may be the most straightforward to fix.

The second, a lack of resources, calls for more of a financial investment. Children need individual computers, a reliable internet connection, and reliable electricity in order to stand a chance of learning the kind of productive digital literacy that will help them find better employment.

This leaves us with the third challenge, a lack of available jobs. If we believe the research that informed the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, we should be optimistic about the increase in computer-related jobs the future will bring.

Moreover, we can recognize the self-fulfilling prophecy at play here. As long as developing communities continue to shrug off digital literacy education because it doesn’t seem valuable for future job prospects, the job prospects will not be created.

(A classic case of which came first — the chicken or the egg?)

An economist would call this a market failure, and recommend investment in digital literacy education.

How can I help?

The Ira Jaan Foundation is committed to investing in digital literacy in the Philippines.

We partner with local counterparts to construct schools and design curricula to empower rural children. Your donation will go toward these children and will equip them with the knowledge they need to change their world for the better…

You can help by clicking here and making a donation today!