Political Discourse

Enforcing gender equality is one of the sustainable development goals that will be achieved in 2030. Sri Lanka, as a developing country, is trying to address several disparities, but computer and digital literacy are still far behind. The Computer Literacy Statistics 2023 report, shows male and female computer literacy rates of around 41.4% and 37.8%, respectively (The Computer Literacy Statistics, 2023). The report illustrated that both genders are not at a satisfactory level, and women are far behind their male counterparts. Although the digital literacy rate is higher than the computer literacy level, at 66.1% and 61.6% for men and women, respectively, women are lagging. The principal research question of this study is why Sri Lanka is still not making a remedy for reducing gender disparity in computer and digital literacy and why females’ computer and digital literacy rates are lower than those of men in Sri Lanka. The main objective of this research is to investigate the prominent factors influencing low levels of computer and digital literacy among men and women. This research mainly depends on a mixed research methodology, and most of the collected data is secondary. The collected quantitative data were analyzed using quantitative research methods. The research findings illustrated that the lack of infrastructure facilities is the first and foremost factor in the low performance of computer and digital literacy in primary and secondary-level education in Sri Lanka. Not only that, but most of the high-quality professional teachers refuse to go to rural areas, and in some rural schools, there are no IT teachers. The government of Sri Lanka does not distribute IT resources equally to urban and rural areas. There is a considerable computer literacy gap between urban and rural areas (52.3% and 37.9%, respectively) (The Computer Literacy Statistics, 2023). The government has already initiated several programs: however, many shortcomings can be seen. The government’s low fund allocation is one of the salient issues for poorly functioning ICT projects. Rural and urban poverty is another factor, and due to the high prices of ICT devices, poor parents find it hard to afford these prices. In conclusion, as a consequence of globalization today, we are in the fourth industrial revolution era. It is clear that, with the recent technological changes, Sri Lanka’s low computer and digital literacy is a dilemma in achieving sustainable development goals and gender parity by 2030. It is important to note that, to address those critical issues, the government should take strong national action to avoid computer and digital literacy gaps in the country.