With more and more people owning smartphones and tablets across the Caribbean region, it is easy to assume that the digital skills and capabilities of our citizens are growing. However, that may not necessarily be the case.

 

One of the articles I included in the news roundup published earlier this week, was entitled, ‘Lack of digital skills among workforce concerns of HR expert’. The expert, Lois Walters, is the President of the Human Resource Management Association of Jamaica, and she was of the view that employees not being digitally literate is a serious challenge to organisations, and the wider society. Further, the lack of digital skills will result in the workforce and the potential workforce being  left behind, especially since increasingly, work processes that are being digitised and automated.

Although the generally limited digital skills in the Caribbean region is widely accepted, upon more careful thought, it may not be readily clear why that is the case:

  • Mobile phone subscriptions across the region is quite high, generally over 100 subscriptions for every 100 inhabitants.
  • Mobile broadband subscriptions have been increasing over the last few years, as service providers have been actively providing plans at a broad range of price points to attract and retain customers.
  • Across the region, and at varying points in time, countries have implemented initiatives to supply students with computing devices, particularly tablet computers and laptops. Further the focus of securing devices for students was heightened in 2020, due to COVID-19.
  • Over the past few years, there has also been calls for more digital learning and electronic (e-)learning, and the integration of digital tools in the classroom. Further, workshops and other programmes to help teachers improve their digital teaching skills have been implemented in most countries.

In light of the above, it is unclear why digital skills still seem to be lacking in the Caribbean region, and particularly among recent entrants into the workforce, who should have benefited from all the strides that have been made over the years. In the paragraphs below, we share some thoughts on reasons why digital skills are still lacking.

 

1.  Way too much talk and not enough action

Education is a popular touchpoint in most political systems. In addition to healthcare, it tends to consume a sizeable portion of the national budget; hence it is an area that should be seen to be improving continually. However, education-related projects that are to be comprehensively deployed tend to be expensive, and are challenging to coordinate. It is thus possible that projects or initiatives are announced, but either their implementation ended up being not as extensive as was initially conceptualised or presumed, or they were not implemented at all – potentially for a broad range of reasons.

 

2.  Consistent and long-term arrangements were absent

Following from the previous point, this reason tends to occur quite regularly. The initial funding to implement projects is secured, but provisions are not made for the longer term follow-up  with respect to upkeep and maintenance. A good example of this are the laptops/tablets in schools initiatives. Having procured the devices, all too often, no system or programme is established for the devices to be maintained and repaired. Also, provisions may not have made to address matters related to software licences and device security, which important considerations in today’s digital environment.  

 

3.  Portable devices give a very abbreviated experience

The digital device people tend to gravitate towards is the smartphone, primarily due to their lower price point than a laptop or desktop computer and their portable nature. Tablet computers are seen as a substitute for laptops and desktop computers, and generally, there is an assumption that a tablet is a just a larger smartphone, and so it is not crucial to have one.

However, as powerful as smartphones and tablet computers are, they offer users an abridged digital experience. The applications on those devices have been designed to provide wide useability, with limited features and functionality. Hence although users might be experiencing a broad range of applications, their simple and intuitive approach does not help develop the (more sophisticated) skills that would be needed to successfully use other computing devices.

 

4.  Majority are not meaningfully connected

The terming ‘meaningful connectivity’, along with guidelines for achieving that state, have been proposed by the Alliance for Affordable Internet (A4AI), and has been discussed here on ICT Pulse, and on our Podcast. Essentially, A4AI is advocating that in order for users to be meaningfully connected, the following minimum thresholds (in bold) should be satisfied:

Users should, at a minimum, have access to a smartphone, which they should be able to use daily, and should be able to experience 4G mobile connectivity. Further, they should also have access to an unlimited broadband connection either at home, or a place of work or study, which would provide them with sufficient data in order to be in a position to fully leverage the Internet.

Without a doubt, a large portion of our population here in the region would not be able to meet all of those minimum thresholds. To a considerable degree, matters related to cost and affordability is still a challenge – be it to secure a decent smartphone, or to purchase a sufficiently large data plan that could accommodate everyday use. Across the region, 4G LTE (Long Term  Evolution) technology has been widely deployed; but not all phones may be able to connect at those speeds. Additionally, 4G coverage can be spotty in rural areas, or due to network congestion, it can be a challenge to experience 4G speeds in certain locations or at certain times of the day.

 

5.  Functional illiteracy may be higher than we realise

Finally, although education is compulsory in the Caribbean and is free for children between the ages of 5 and 16 years, students are leaving school functionally illiterate, which according to UNESCO means that they “cannot engage in all those activities in which literacy is required for effective functioning of his group and community and also for enabling him to continue to use reading, writing and calculation for his own and the community’s development”

Having said this, literacy, illiteracy, functional literacy and functional illiteracy are not regularly assessed in the region; and so there is limited authoritative data available. However, poverty tends to affect children’s education, in terms of their ability to successfully and consistently access what is available.

With regard to connecting functional illiteracy to digital skills development, a smartphone (or tablet computer) – with its icons, predictive text/spelling, text-to-voice and voice notes capabilities, for example – does not necessarily require users to possess advanced reading and computational skills, or the application of logic, in order to use it well. Hence, it may be easy to assume that because a wide cross-section of our citizens are able to use their smartphones and/tablet computers, that they are digitally literate, or possess comprehensive digital skills. However, if the average a 4 or 5 year old – who is still learning to read and write – has little difficulty using these types of devices, it ought to call into question not only the extent to which digital skills are needed to use a smartphone or tablet computer, but also whether the broad range of digital skills that are needed in today’s world can be learnt on such devices.

 

 

Image credit: Angelo Esslinger (Pixabay)