Without digital literacy, can Pakistan improve its overall literacy rate? Not really. Literacy is the basic skill of reading and writing that empowers individuals to understand and communicate ideas, enabling them to interact with society more productively.
According to the Labour Force Survey 2020-21, Pakistan’s literacy rate is 62.8%, with the male literacy rate at 73.4%, significantly higher than the female literacy rate of 51.9%.
This disparity indicates the urgent need for a decisive action to improve literacy rates. Digital innovations and technology can play an effective role in providing access to education for all Pakistanis. To make Pakistan more literate, digital literacy is one of the most effective solutions.
Since the advent of digital evolution and the dawn of artificial intelligence, the world has evolved and established new ways and values on which the people consume information and the world interacts with each other. The conventional definition of literacy is the ability of people to read and write.
However, times have changed, and new concepts need to be developed to ensure that people everywhere can function in today’s technologically advanced society.
According to UNESCO itself, literacy is now understood beyond the conventional concept as a set of reading, writing, and counting skills but as a way of identification, understanding, interpretation, creation, and communication in an increasingly digital, text-mediated, information-rich, and fast-changing world.
Digital literacy skills along with conventional literacy skills are an effective way to build a modern and future-oriented human society that can play a productive role in building socio-economies, developing future work-force, and building a like-minded global community.
The UNESCO Institute for Statistics defines digital literacy as the ability to access, manage, understand, integrate, communicate, evaluate, and create information safely and appropriately through digital technologies for employment, decent jobs and entrepreneurship. It includes competences that are variously referred to as computer literacy, ICT literacy, information literacy, and media literacy.
Considering Pakistan’s literacy situation, Pakistan has dual challenges as the country’s literacy rate is lower than global literacy rate and digital awareness about the productive usage of digital technologies is weak as well. UNICEF reported that over 26 million children of school-age are out of school in Pakistan – one of the highest numbers of out-of-school children in the world.
The alarming state of children’s education was brought to light in the most recent report by the Pakistan Alliance for Maths and Science (PAMS), titled The Missing Third. It said that 18.8 million out-of-school children reside in rural areas alone, and that 51% of children between the ages of 5 and 9 have never attended school.
Given the alarming situation, the Government of Pakistan declared an education emergency to address the ongoing crisis. However, sustained, collective, and result-driven efforts are needed to ensure that every Pakistani, particularly children and women, has access to education and digital empowerment for enabling them to fully participate in society.
Instead of relying solely on traditional school systems, the most efficient and effective way to expedite the process of raising the literacy rate is to use technology and digital resources to provide access to education to all Pakistanis, particularly women and children.
According to the annual report of Pakistan Telecommunication Authority, Pakistan has an astounding 130 million broadband users and 192 million telecom users as of September 2023 with a penetration rate of 54.5%.
This data indicates the massive reach of internet and mobile access to the nation and how digital learning can be a transformative way to bring an education revolution through E-learning platforms, mobile learning apps, learning management systems, and interactive tools.
By leveraging technology, it has the potential to reach underprivileged communities, provide flexible learning opportunities, and address the gaps in traditional education systems to increase the literacy rate in Pakistan.
However, to fully realize its benefits, the public and private sector partnerships are crucial to develop all the required resources for investing in digital infrastructure, training for educators, and equitable access to devices and the internet.
With concerted efforts from the government, private sector, and civil society, digital education can play a transformative role in uplifting literacy rates and empowering future generations in Pakistan.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2024
The writer is a communication professional and volunteers with a US-based NGO focused on community service. The writer can be reached at [email protected]
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