Delegates in the International Telecommunications Union bring up that education on digital literacy is important — and here's why

Starting from session two, the issue of education has become a hot topic within the International Telecommunications Union. Why, you ask, would a committee focussed on technology and communications be worrying about teaching students. Delegates, especially those from the block known as “The Hallway Group”, bring up digital literacy, and why it is an important skill to teach. The committee will provide the answers to precisely why this seemingly irrelevant subject is so deeply tied to not only their job, but also your lives.

After setting their agenda to the topic of advancing global infrastructure, the delegates in this committee soon realized the fact that advancing infrastructure would be quite useless unless the individuals receiving that technology actually knew how to use it.

France emphasizes the issue of poor digital literacy, being an issue across the globe in both countries that are and aren’t familiar with technology. Digital literacy refers to the ability to use and understand technological tools. This means the skills to use modern tools to improve productivity, collaboration and creativity (Government of Canada).

When we take a deeper look into this subject, we see that this is an issue close to our lives, prevalent in Canada, where we already have plenty of access to digital technology and education.

The truth is, digital skills are no longer a skill but a necessity. So much of people’s lives are now impacted by the digital world, maybe even more so than they are involved with the real world. From seeking jobs to accessing healthcare and managing finances, it is essential for Canadians to be able to navigate online (ABC Life Literacy Canada). When Canadians are left behind without this ability, they face failing at school, less job opportunities, falling for scams and isolation from accessing essential government resources (Mangarin, Climaco).

Just imagine what it would look like for people in developing nations who have even more limited access to the internet in the first place.

Like an iceberg, even after understanding that, we will see that the issue of digital literacy skills still runs much deeper. Even when given access to technology, lacking digital literacy skills means the inability to navigate online properly, being unable to find proper resources and falling trap to false information. Softwares and websites already fail to offer proper guidance through their own application, making the internet incredibly hard to use when you aren’t already familiar with it. This is especially true when it comes to more complicated assets, including creative ones like Photoshop or even essential ones like online banking.

When we consider the impacts this entails, we can see that it is also deepening educational and economic issues.

For example, if one student, Jane Doe, lacks the ability to navigate through resources and use tools, which another student, John Enturnete is already equipped with, it will weaken Jane Doe’s academic performance in comparison. The student lacking digital literacy skills will have to put in increasingly more time and effort in order to achieve the same results.

On the economic stand point, it means those who didn’t grow up with the privilege to learn digital literacy by figuring out how the internet works themselves will have to put in extra effort to make up for it. Especially because digital literacy is not a focus inside our current when it comes to educational or even social systems, people growing up with less access to the web will inevitably have worse understanding of how digital tools work, not only resulting in the inability to be employed in fields where technology use is important, which is an increasing number of jobs.

In developing countries, this means even if delegates in the ITU provide the digital infrastructures globally, inequality will still be prevalent as access to tools does not automatically mean the ability to use them. Especially when the fact that reliance on technologies from others means that you will always be reliant on others. It should be noticed that for these countries to truly bridge the gap of technology, they not only need to access but develop their own technology and tools. This cannot be achieved unless basic digital literacy has been taught. Which is especially important because digital literacy is an even rarer skill in these countries.

To truly achieve equality, providing isn't enough. In fact, teaching is even more important than providing. The ability to navigate technology properly is a skill even developed countries are lacking, let alone developing ones. This hot topic in this committee is truly an important issue being realized. Next, it will be interesting to see what solution the ITU delegates come up with to address this issue.

Works Cited

ABC Life Literacy Canada. (2026, May 19). Supporting Adult Learners With Low Digital Literacy l ABC Life Literacy. https://abclifeliteracy.ca/news/bridging-the-digital-divide-supporting-adult-learners-with-low-digital-literacy/

Exploring Contributing Factors on poor digital literacy of Students: A Review of Existing Studies – International Journal of Research and Innovation in Applied Science (IJRIAS). (n.d.). https://rsisinternational.org/journals/ijrias/articles/exploring-contributing-factors-on-poor-digital-literacy-of-students-a-review-of-existing-studies/#:~:text=Without%20strong%20digital%20skills%2C%20students,jobs%20now%20require%20technological%20competence.

Government of Canada. (n.d.). Digital Litercy. Retrieved May 29, 2026, from https://abclifeliteracy.ca/news/bridging-the-digital-divide-supporting-adult-learners-with-low-digital-literacy/