Upholding the rights-based and human-centred approaches to literacy promotion in the digital era.

 

More than four decades of experience in the use of digital technology in literacy promotion has shown that positive results can be achieved when actors join hands prudently and uphold the right to literacy and education as a guiding principle as put forward by the International Commission on the Futures ofEducation and the Transforming Education Summit (TES) convened by the United Nations SecretaryGeneral (New York, September 2022). The importance of the principles of equity, equality, and nondiscrimination has also been stressed by the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Education, UNESCO and experts. Also highlighted is the centrality of context-specific, culturally relevant, human-centred approaches that foster human agency and pay heed to the impact on the environment, rather than techno-centric ones. There is a variety of assertions regarding the extent to which technology can be beneficial for literacy teaching and learning, interventions, programme management and monitoring. What is needed is to act and build robust evidence by prudently adopting digital technology as a tool to translate ideas into action, rather than expecting digital learning to be a panacea for educational issues.