Digital Literacy Education: how will this be funded?
Commons’ Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee have claimed "digital literacy should be the fourth pillar of education, alongside reading, writing and maths".
Many would agree digital literacy education, encompassing technical proficiency and e-safety amongst other themes, is increasingly important as we become more and more digitally dependent. Of course, all schools and colleges do provide a form of digital education, but the claim here is that it becomes a core subject, covered more in-depth and frequently in schools.
The problem is increased digital education will cost, leaving us to question where the funds will come from?
According to an article in Engineering & Technology, the Culture Secretary, Jeremy Wright, has claimed our government may introduce a levy on social media firms to pay for educational programmes that teach young people digital literacy skills and help them spot fake news. The new plans follow a series of recommendations from the Commons’ Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee where they called for a levy, in addition to greater transparency for users presented with online political advertising and updates to the UK’s electoral policies.
The recommendations state:
“Digital literacy should be the fourth pillar of education, alongside reading, writing and maths. The social media educational levy should be used, in part, by the government, to finance this additional part of the curriculum.”
Wright has commented any updates on this matter will likely be announced in the winter.
Released On 29th Oct 2018