Why We Put so Much Effort on Digital Literacy Research

At Quizrr, we believe in the power of digital innovation to drive positive change for workers across the globe.

Quizrr

Admin

Education for everyone, driven by technological innovation, is the key to empowering stakeholders in the supply chain to overcome issues like modern slavery, forced labor, late payments and other unfair practices that remain widespread in the global workforce. But we also understand that where there’s innovation without education, there’s a risk of leaving people behind. In an increasingly digital world, new skills are required to ensure workers can make the most of Quizrr’s tools, and navigate the rapidly changing world of work.  

The Case for Digital Training 

UNESCO defines digital literacy as the ability to access, manage, understand, integrate, communicate, evaluate and create information safely and appropriately through digital technologies for employment, decent jobs and entrepreneurship.  

Quizrr provides on-site training in the form of live-action films and learning modules for workers in the global supply chain. The training raises awareness of human and labor rights issues for workers, affected communities and managers in the supply chain, while also providing relevant insights so that the world’s largest companies can identify potential issues and take action.  

Often Quizrr’s training is delivered to workers with deployed via tablets, smartphones, or their own devices. on the phones of workers. The end user’s digital literacy contributes to the training’s effectiveness. With levels of digital literacy varying worldwide, readers may ask: Why go digital at all? The problem is, analog methods can’t keep up with the pace of global change or the breadth of lived experiences all over the world, whether demographic, cultural or regulatory.  

A Key to Inlusivity

Just like levels of digital literacy, the circumstances that supply chain workers live under are not uniform. Training platforms must have the flexibility and agility to reflect this. Particularly vulnerable groups like migrant workers might not speak the local language and so would need a multilingual platform that allows them to engage in their own language. Women workers in the supply chain might fear retaliation if they’re seen giving negative feedback in a suggestion box, but digital platforms allow them to participate with the protection of anonymity. 

Where large scale deployment is necessary, digital methods win out due to easy scalability. Distribution and data collection are easier when trainings can be accessed by workers on computers, tablets or their own devices. 

Digital training allows us to adapt its live-action training films for each region and add subtitles and dubbing options. Using live action video enables workers to engage whatever their literacy level, digital or otherwise. Quizrr is able to train thousands of workers per day, and ensure that training is relevant to them. Digitalization also allows us to know that 98% of those that take the training learn something new. It’s this kind of scalability that will enable us to achieve our goal of training 100 million workers.   

The Quizrr Digital Literacy Report: Understanding Digital Literacy for Improved Accessibility 

Employing digital methods means workers will need to be digitally literate, which isn’t always guaranteed. As the importance of digital educational tools grows, improved information on digital literacy levels will be crucial. As it stands there exists no global, comparable snapshot on digital literacy. Getting country level data is difficult and requires research into a variety of sources. Quizrr has been busy improving their understanding of global digital literacy rates by compiling data on the subject. 

We assessed the ten countries that represent its largest markets on the following metrics: 

• Demographics and workforce 
• Smartphone penetration 
• Smartphone / operating system 
• Internet penetration 
• Internet distribution (type of connection) 
• Device market share (laptops / smartphones / tablets) 
• Internet of Things (IoT) maturity 
• Digital use in education 
• Education levels 
• Literacy 

 A better understanding of digital literacy allows companies like us to make their training more accessible. Researching how levels of digital literacy differ along lines of country, industry, gender etc. means we can adapt implementation so that they can reach as many workers as possible. 

The insights gleaned from this research help us optimize its market approach. In India, the number of internet users has increased from 481 million in 2019 to 743 million in 2023. In a country where 11 million workers suffer under conditions of modern slavery, any data that can help improve worker access to education or remedy is significant. 

The Chinese Government has rolled out a number of programs to improve digital literacy, but internet penetration remains uneven nationwide, and digital literacy is comparatively low among rural farmers, the middle aged and the elderly. In the US, we found that one third of US citizens lack digital skills, particularly in the black and hispanic ethnic communities. Levels of digital literacy can vary in richer countries too, underscoring the need for localization. 

Half of the population in Bangladesh is under-25. A combination of smartphone uptake and proactive education programs from the Government means that Bangladesh is undergoing a youth-led digital transformation. However, the cost of the internet remains prohibitive for many in Bangladesh, particularly in rural areas, at 6.9x the global average.  

Studying digital literacy levels helps us to understand where manager training needs to be prioritized. Helping managers with digital literacy is integrated into the onboarding process of our training implementation, so workers who might have any questions have someone they can talk to if any issues arise during their training. Our commitment to localization means that we have native speakers ready to perform site visits in all countries where we operate, so digital processes needn’t ever be a barrier to participation.  

Recognizing and taking action on the importance of digital literacy is essential for companies who are committed to education for all. The advantages and opportunities of using digital tools to educate workers in the supply chain are too good to pass up, but we must ensure that these tools don’t exclude workers who struggle to use them. By studying digital literacy rates, and using accessible, scalable, agile digital training tools Quizrr hopes to ensure that the future of work is for everyone.