International Literacy Day: the significance of digital literacy
Today marks International Literacy Day
[https://www.unesco.org/en/days/literacy] (ILD), a reminder of the
crucial role literacy plays in upholding dignity and human rights.
Literacy serves as a fundamental pillar for education and a lifelong
learning aligning with Sustainable Development Goal 4
[https://sdgs.un.org/goals/goal4]’s aim to ensure inclusive,
equitable and quality education and promote lifelong learning
opportunities for all. Therefore, this years’ theme of ILD is
‘Promoting literacy for a world in transition: Building the
foundation for sustainable and peaceful societies’.
[https://www.unesco.org/en/days/literacy]

In the current digital landscape, digital literacy has become more
important. It allows people to find, evaluate and communicate
information through digital technology and take part in a society
where technology is used in a lot of different areas of our lives,
including work and education. Statistics from Eurostat
[https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat] show that 54% of the EU’s population
aged 16-74 had at least a basic level of digital literacy in 2021
[https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/view/sdg_04_70/default/table?lang=en].


To further increase digital literacy in Europe, various initiatives
have been created. One such initiative is the Digital Skills and Jobs
Platform [https://digital-skills-jobs.europa.eu/en/about] that helps
people to advance their digital skills and knowledge by providing open
access to up-to-date content, and dynamic and collaborative spaces. A
wide variety of training materials
[https://digital-skills-jobs.europa.eu/en/opportunities/training] is
available for all different levels of digital skills, from web basics
to Artificial Intelligence
[https://digital-skills-jobs.europa.eu/en/artificial-intelligence] and
Augmented Reality
[https://digital-skills-jobs.europa.eu/en/inspiration/research/shaping-digital-transformation-europe-2020].


Similarly, data.europa.eu [https://data.europa.eu/en], and
specifically the data.europa academy
[https://data.europa.eu/en/academy], continues to provide courses to
help in the further development of digital literacy. Learning how to
incorporate open data into applications
[https://data.europa.eu/en/academy/incorporating-open-data-your-application],
improving open data and metadata quality
[https://data.europa.eu/en/academy/improving-open-data-and-metadata-quality]
and creating data visualisations with impact
[https://data.europa.eu/en/academy/inspiring-through-data-visualisation]
are just a few of the courses available. These initiatives are easily
accessible and can enhance your digital literacy. 

Are you curious to know your level of Digital Literacy? Conduct the
digital skills test
[https://digital-skills-jobs.europa.eu/en/digital-skills-assessment]
on the Digital Skills and Jobs Platform
[https://digital-skills-jobs.europa.eu/en/about] and see where you can
continue to learn and grow. 

For more news and events, follow us on Twitter
[https://twitter.com/EU_opendata], Facebook
[https://www.facebook.com/data.europa.eu] and LinkedIn
[https://www.linkedin.com/company/publications-office-of-the-european-union/],
or subscribe to our newsletter
[https://data.europa.eu/en/newsletter]

Publication Date/Time
2023-09-08T08:00:35+00:00
Discover European initiatives to further enhance digital literacy and
foster sustainable and peaceful societies