Moore urges stepped up digital education

St George North MP Toni Moore has called for a holistic rollout of a digital education strategy, declaring that training and education on the digital economy must catch up with a changing digital world.

As she commented on the bill to introduce a smart ID card to replace the current laminated card, Moore told the House of Assembly that more has to be done for citizens to obtain the level of education required to ensure that they understand digital engagement and its benefits.

She declared: “I heard reference being made to the security features in the [Digital ID] card and that is something that we must not only convey by simple means of information sharing. But I think that we must go a bit deeper and teach about cybersecurity as Barbados finds itself launching out and pursuing more digital means and engagement.

“It was explained to me that the Digital ID card has a number of security elements in it which are very tight. But how do we get that information communicated to the wider population?  I heard mention being made about the rollout of a sensitization programme where we will speak about the efficiencies that we consider are in the technologies being rolled out.

“But beyond that, I think it is important for our people to be educated on the simple benefits and the simple challenges that they can encounter when they do transactions online. How do they secure themselves as they do transactions of the nature that we have been speaking about a short while ago? How do they position themselves to protect themselves as they use a Digital ID for various forms of transactions? And then it raises the issue too of a digital footprint. If you have a Digital ID, you are leaving your digital footprint all over.”

The parliamentarian and General Secretary of the Barbados Workers’ Union (BWU) said that the task of educating citizens about a digital economy should not be left only to Government. But, she suggested that civil society and other institutions must also be involved in the process.

Moore said: “If a person finds themselves in a position where they don’t know, or they lack access to the technology that would facilitate the advantages that we expect should be brought by digital technologies, then a person may consider that they are being left behind.

“Speaking of the have nots, in case of maybe income, the can nots in terms of the education gap, only a short while ago I was confronted with a situation with one individual who is reaching out to me because they are in a household where nobody is working, the internet got cut off and it means that children and grandchildren are also cut off from their access to education.

“Why am I going there? The person who finds themselves in that situation is a person who feels disenfranchised and who will not see the positives in steps like this that we are discussing. Who will only be able to relate to it with cynicism and lack of trust because they lack basic means.”

Moore reminded the House that digital literacy is one of the objectives outlined in the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Goal four’s aim is to increase the share of people who would have access to technologies.

She said citizens must have access to not only hardware and software but also the tools and means to access technology.

Moore also told her fellow lawmakers that community conspiracy theories also result from barriers people put up because they simply do not know.

She added: “So that person that might hear chip, and might think that it is something you eat with chicken. So training and sensitization is something that must be targeted across all levels of our society so that we are addressing not only knowledge gaps, we are addressing community perceptions; we are minimizing the potential for mistrust and cynicism by those who may feel disenfranchised, and those who may not feel disenfranchised but those who may not find themselves connecting to the benefits of the good initiatives that are being rolled out.” (AH)