Gender, Digital Literacy and the Acquisition of Life Skills & Values: Evidence from a Household-Based assessment in East Africa.

• In Event: Digital tools supporting youth and gender justice in educational settings

Proposal

Digital literacy is the ability to use digital platforms and resources to access, evaluate, and make use of information. Evidence reveals that digital literacy can help students become lifelong learners and engage them in the process of acquiring academic skills. It also empowers and helps individuals to stay connected and be informed about the things that are revolving around every sphere of life. For adolescent and youth, particularly, it serves to enable them to learn, thrive, compete in the digital age and acquire skills necessary to navigate life and access jobs. Further, it accelerates the process towards the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). SDG 4 thematic Indicator 4.4.2: focuses on the percentage of youth/adults who have achieved at least a minimum level of proficiency in digital literacy skills.
Digital literacy is critical for children's and young people's development, and engagement in online education, acquisition of life skills and values, both formal and informal learning, access to critical information, support related to health and well-being, the search for employment, career information, among others. Among young girls and women, especially in settings where they are less empowered, digital literacy fosters, develops, improves their ability to navigate life, be more self aware, increase employment opportunities and workforce participation.
The last two decades, have seen the advancement of digital technologies, reaching about 50 percent of the developing world’s population. According to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), an estimated 75% of adolescents and young adults, who represent the largest group of internet users worldwide, were connected to the internet in 2022 (ITU 2022). In Kenya Uganda, Tanzania and Zanzibar, the current focus is on the importance of empowering children, adolescents and young adults to become digitally competent through the Competence Based Curriculum. In Kenya, digital literacy is one of the 7 core competencies and aims to enable learners to use and apply technology to collaborate, communicate, be analyse, create, innovate, and solve problems as well as ensure that they use it in a safe, and ethical manner.
Despite this advancement, access to digital technologies remains uneven. Majority (90%) of the world's adolescents aged 10–19 live in low- and middle-income countries such as Kenya Uganda and Tanzania. These countries are under resourced and adolescents, particularly the female, face multiple challenges across education, health, social, and economic domains. As such, many adolescents remain further behind. Evidence also shows that many of the people left behind are girls, women, the elderly, persons with disabilities or from ethnic or linguistic minorities, and groups of people who are poor or live in remote areas. Digital divides reflect and amplify existing social, cultural and economic inequalities.
Evidence reveals that the gender gap in global Internet use shows that in two out of every three countries, more men use the Internet than women. Globally, the proportion of women using the internet is 12 percent lower than that of men. While this gap narrowed in most regions between 2013 and 2017, it widened in the least developed countries from 30 per cent to 33 percent. In terms of access and use of technologies, social barriers, and gender stereotypes and roles continue to disadvantage girls and women. Therefore, the mode of interaction with technologies, digital competencies in Education, the mode of teaching and learning, and participation requires more attention.
Life skills and values play a critical role on various outcomes. More attention should be paid to outcomes that relate to gender and digital skills since they can reproduce social inequalities and exacerbate exclusion. This paper utilizes the ALiVE assessment data from a sample derived from the Population and Housing Census’ frames for Kenya, Tanzania Mainland, Tanzania Zanzibar, and Uganda. A total of 45,442 in-school and out-of-school adolescent boys and girls from ages 13 to 17 from 35,720 households, 1,991 enumeration areas, and 85 districts/counties. The Rasch model was used to explore, quantify the participants’ responses, and provide tools for interpreting skills that underpin constructing and developing empirical proficiency levels. Further analyses were performed to explore the three Life skills and value across countries and by selected variables. The paper will highlight how female and male adolescents compare in terms of their ability to access and use digital devises in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania, and how it relates to their proficiency in life skills (collaboration, problem solving and Self awareness) and the value of respect. It will also articulate the relationship between gender, and the level of proficiency in life skills and values among adolescents and draw lessons for the three East African countries.

Authors

• Mary Chepkemoi, Zizi Afrique Foundation

• Stella Rose Akongo, Luigi Giussani Institute for Higher Education

• John Mugo, Zizi Afrique Foundation