On Jan. 21, the Ukrainian government launched a test version of a national program of promoting digital literacy, “Diya. Digital Education.”
The initiative was previously announced by Prime Minister Oleksiy Honcharuk and Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine’s minister of digital transformation.
“We are making another important step towards overcoming digital inequality,” Honcharuk said in a statement.
The platform offers digital literacy education in the form of free series where an expert and a celebrity explain how to use websites, possible applications of smartphones and laptops and basic Internet safety rules. It is meant to help Ukrainians of all ages to start using the Internet and smartphones. It comes as part of Zelensky’s government’s pledge to transfer state services online.
Currently, three series are available: a basic one, one for teachers and one for parents. Each series includes a few episodes lasting five to 10 minutes, which will be available in Ukrainian, Russian and sign language. More content will be added to the website on Jan. 30.
“The government has a very ambitious goal right now. We want to teach at least six million Ukrainians digital literacy in three years,” said Fedorov.
Currently, five additional courses are planned for the platform that will be targeted at a professional audience.
According to information on the Ministry of Digital Transformation website, offline education centers will be set up in the second quarter of 2020, and another 12 educational series will be produced by the end of the year.
The videos are created by the online education center EdEra, with financing from the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency as well as the East Europe Foundation and the Innovabridge Foundation.
According to the first social research about the quality of Ukrainians’ digital skills conducted by MLS Group, 53.5% of Ukrainians have below-average digital skills, 15.1% don’t have any skills at all and 37.9% have low-quality digital literacy; 34% of Ukrainians aged 18 to 70 have been scammed on the Internet at least once. Among Ukrainians aged 10 to 17, 49.5% have been scammed online.
People under 16 and over 60 are the least protected, according to Valeriya Ionan, a deputy minister of digital transformation.
