OPINION PIECE: HOW DIGITAL LITERACY WILL HELP KENYAN YOUTHS STAY AHEAD

From classroom to career stage, digital literacy will help Kenyan youths stay ahead says George Asamani, the managing director, Sub-Saharan Africa, Project Management Institute.

The success of mobile money and the rise of African techpreneurs has catalysed the technology investment scene on the continent. At the recent U.S.-Africa Business Forum, President Biden announced the Digital Transformation with Africa (DTA) initiative, which will invest $350 million to expand digital access and literacy in Africa. During the last decade, the promise of Africa’s $180 billion digital economy started an undersea cable race amongst Silicon Valley giants to build the region’s internet infrastructure.  

Africa controls 70 percent of the world’s $1 trillion mobile money market. It is a fact that can easily lull you into believing the continent is a land of digital abundance. Being Pollyanna about the explosive growth in mobile payments masks the full magnitude of the digital divide. For instance, compared to other regions in the world, sub-Saharan Africa still has the highest monthly cost, as a percentage of GDP, of one gigabyte of data.

According to the 2021 Ibrahim Forum Report, 58 percent of Kenyans have access to the internet, but only 29 percent of the population has a basic level of digital literacy. The lack of digital literacy hinders the country’s economic growth and results in missed opportunities. Digital literacy is more than just the ability to use the internet, it is also about skills in data analytics, app development, and network management. 

The Kenyan government has taken a step in the right direction by introducing coding as part of the school curriculum in primary and secondary schools. This will contribute to improving digital literacy among young people and equip them with the necessary skills to compete in the digital economy. In prioritising digital literacy, policymakers can hope to attract some of the 20-50 million jobs that will be created from the development and deployment of technology (McKinsey). 

While curriculums in many African schools address computer literacy, policymakers should ensure that the curriculum develops digital literacy skills that are relevant to the country’s digital economy. This will ensure that students have the necessary skills to take up the opportunities provided by Kenya’s growing digital economy.

Various private sector organisations such as mobile network operators and technology companies, have launched digital literacy initiatives in Kenya. For example, Safaricom, Kenya’s largest mobile network operator, has established a program called “DigiFarm,” which provides small-scale farmers with digital skills to improve their productivity and income. That said, more needs to be done to bridge the broader digital literacy gap especially in rural Kenya to ensure that all Kenyans can participate in the digital economy.

Not-for-profit Project Management Institute, the a leading association for project professionals, has been advocating to make it easier for students to connect with skills development opportunities over the internet. It offers citizen development courses free of cost to interested universities in Africa. But coordinating mechanisms are needed to improve interaction and collaboration across government, educational institutes, training providers, and business so the intention is translated into action. 

Citizen development is one of the strategies to enhance digital literacy. Citizen developers create software and applications with little or no coding experience and will be central to digital transformation in the future. If we continue to ignore the fact that technological progress and its accelerating rate of change requires new skill sets, we will produce a workforce unfit for the 230 million jobs requiring digital skills by 2030 (IFC 2019 Digital Skills report). 

As we face the fourth industrial revolution, improving access at the expense of the ability to participate in the digital economy is squandering the best opportunity in decades to close the digital divide.