The Digital Divide In The US

The Digital Divide In The USA – How Bad Is It?

The Digital Divide in the USA

The digital divide in the USA refers to inequalities between individuals, households, and other groups of different demographic and socioeconomic levels and the knowledge and skills needed to make effective use of the information gained through access and connectivity to information and communication technologies (ICTs).

Does the Digital Divide Exist in the USA?

As humanity becomes more dependent on the internet, millions of Americans, from the countryside to inner cities, still find it difficult to access high-speed broadband service.

In my previous article entitled THE DIGITAL DIVIDE IN GHANA-HOW BAD IS IT? I discussed some causes of the digital gap in education in Ghana and preferred possible solutions to the problem. As much as many people in the developing countries especially those in Africa envy the West for the strides they have made in information communication technology, for example, all cannot be said to have been perfect or rosy for those Western countries many count as developed.

It is quite fascinating and amusing to note that the USA, the much envied USA does not have a hundred percent digital coverage. Come with me as we examine the facts together.

                Let’s  Scrutinize the Statistics

The US comes third in the use of the internet in the world, with 313 million regular users of the internet nationwide.90.8% of Americans have access to the internet.276.8 million people use mobile internet in the USA. The most popular digital activity among internet users in the USA is Email. The most widely used multi-platform web property in the US is Google Sites.

The most popular channel to access digital media properties in the US is a smartphone. The number of social network users in the US is 295.48 million. The percentage of the US  population currently using social media is 82%.

The Digital Divide In Education in the USA unmasked Big-time During the COVID-19 PANDEMIC

According to www.bcg.com, when American K-12 public schools in all fifty states closed their doors in March 2020, the inequities and scale of the digital divide were abruptly unmasked. According to BCG Research in 2020, co-authored with common sense, roughly 30% of children in grades K-12(15 to 16 million students) did not have adequate internet service or e-learning devices to effectively continue their studies from their homes.

When the pandemic broke out, many states and districts hurriedly mobilized to cater for the needs of their digitally underserved students, frequently making use of the emergency funding endorsed in March by the CoronaVirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES)Act.

They procured devices, hot spots, and other resources and collaborated with providers to offer sponsored services at no cost to eligible households, among other measures. Yet BCG research showed that while those measures were significant, up to 12 million K-12 students nationwide remained inadequately connected at the start of 2021. More than 75% of such initiatives will end between the next one to three years.

How Does Lit Empowerment and Support Incorporated Come In?

Lit Empowerment and Support Incorporated, a no-profit, non-governmental organization seeking to help with the bridging of the digital divide in Ghana and the USA, especially in basic public schools hereby solicits support in the form of sponsorships and partnerships in building ICT Labs for needy rural schools. Donations of ICT tools and equipment are also welcome.

The organization will gladly do onward presentations of such received donations to impoverished schools and, or students in order to help them be at par with the advantaged minority, in Ghana’s case, and the advantaged majority in the USA.

What’s the Way Forward?

Even as learners go back to school personally, dealing with the digital divide permanently is vital. Lack of access at home significantly negatively affects students learning, which translates to income losses and can last throughout their lives.

Conclusion-Closing the Digital Divide For Good

To close the digital gap for good, we must address the three major barriers to access; affordability, availability, and adoption.BCGs research found that up to 60% of students without digital access (9 million), especially disconnected Black and urban students, are unable to afford it. Up to 25% (4 million)lack access to readily available and reliable broadband service, a barrier that disproportionately affects rural and Native American students. Finally, up to 40%(6 million), face adoption challenges such as digital literacy and language barriers.

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The Importance of ICT In Governance, Security, and Safety Issues

Importance of Security    

Governance, security, and safety issues in the societies of our world have been through many phases and are very important. The security of nations and their people, especially in these times, when religious fundamentalism and extremism, and terrorism are on the increase is very paramount. Nations and their governments will stop at nothing to ensure that their people are safe, and that, their territorial integrity is never breached. Governance issues are more than before been discussed and scrutinized.

Good Governance

Good governance is an issue of global interest. The Fraternity of nations means that whatever happens in Afghanistan is of equal concern to the world just like what happens in Guinea. No business wants to invest and base in an unsafe country. Job seekers do not enjoy working in an unsafe environment.

In this article, I shall discuss the role and impact of ICT in Governance, security, and safety issues.

Some Merits of ICT in the Governing and Security “ Business”                                   

ICT helps reduce or combat corruption in governance. In Rwanda, it is an established fact that, in order to check corruption and improve efficiency and transparency, a lot of the human interface has been removed and replaced by digital interfaces eg., in the acquisition of land, the process has been automated. The automation of the tax regime is another way of ensuring efficiency, transparency and accountability. By effectively deploying ICT in governance, citizenship participation can also be greatly enhanced.

Security alarm systems and tracking devices are preventing and tracking thefts and criminals. National security apparatus of nations rely heavily on ICT-based gadgets to detect security threats, including terror threats. Critical installations are fitted with IT tools so as to protect them. Militaries of advanced nations are deploying precision missiles, drones, and even robotic dogs among others for maneuvers and surveillance.

Ghana as a Case Study

During the 2021 Ghana housing and population census, enumerators were trained on how to do their enumeration using tablets. This has not been the story growing up in Ghana. The enumerators in times past used to do their work using forms in hardcopy. That certainly took more time and was more difficult to do.  Citizen participation was greatly enhanced too. Elections around the world, especially in Ghana have seen a taste of ICT as verification was done digitally in the 2020 general elections. The drawing of policies has not been this easy.

ICT In Day-to-Day Administration of  Regional and Sub Regional Peace and Cooperation

Information handling and dissemination have become easier. Governments around the world have websites with loads of relevant information for the public. It is common to behold world leaders and leaders of nations even within West Africa holding important deliberations on current trendy political issues like the coup in Guinea via conferencing apps such as Zoom, Skype, etc.

Louder Voices of the Masses in Decision Making By ICT

With ICT, particularly, on social media, the governed or the ruled can be heard more conspicuously as they make their opinions known. Debating controversial policies to see if they sit well with the populace or not before rollout has also become more popular with the citizens because of social media and digital TV and radio.

The Digital Divide a Real Challenge

Now, how do the young people of developing countries especially, position themselves so as to be able to continue to use ICT, whether as the governed or governing to positively impact society in governance, security and safety matters? They, no doubt need to have some form of ICT knowledge, skills, and competencies. It is however very well known that many developing countries are not able to provide the necessary environment in their basic schools to satisfy this condition.

Lit Empowerment and Support Incorporated as  a Wheel to Bridging the Digital Divide

To help create this ICT learning Environment in their own small way, Lit Empowerment and Support Incorporated, a nongovernmental, nonprofit organization that focuses on alleviating the plight of impoverished schools in the area of ICTs in Ghana, hereby respectfully calls on anyone that wishes and is capable to join them in this noble cause by providing any form of assistance to it.

The assistance could be in the form of cash donations, grants, sponsorships, partnerships, donations of ICT and IT tools, facilities such as ICT Labs, etc. Lit Empowerment  Support Incorporated believes that, together, they would be able to help position some young people to actually take advantage of ICT to positively impact society in governance, security, and safety matters.

More Merits of ICT in Governance and Security, safety-Policing

Again, citizens have in recent times been able to put a searchlight on the activities of law enforcers (police) with regard to excesses while performing their duties. Cell phones with built-in cameras enable this. Body cams of security personnel elsewhere in the world have aided investigations and provided answers to pertinent questions about certain crimes and occurrences that would have been hard to solve minus the body cams. Some advanced countries are seriously conceiving and piloting groundbreaking innovations in fire fighting and emergency situations.

Early Warning Systems

Early warning systems are being deployed to forewarn jurisdictions of impending imminent natural disasters. Earthquakes, floods, volcanoes, tornadoes, and such like them. In social security, ICTs are helping nations manage and use funds more profitably. In monitoring and evaluation, the GES and other agencies have taken to ICT. Facial and hand recognition technologies are being built as security features for critical installations and infrastructure. Need I say more?

Educational Content and Broadcasts

During the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown in Ghana, the government kept in touch with the people closely, giving updates and announcing interventions. The Ghana public broadcaster, GBC was tasked to do public broadcasts of curriculum instructions for all students at home due to the lockdown. Schools that had basic IT tools resorted to virtual classrooms to teach their pupils and students. Currently, there’s a raffle draw being run by The Daily Graphic, the number one state-owned daily newspaper on its anniversary. A man in far away Sunyani won a car because he was able to enter the draw by means of his cell phone.

ICT in Health Insurance Administration

Still, in Ghana, the much-acclaimed health insurance scheme has taken a digital dimension. Clients can perform some actions right on their phones, tabs, and laptops without necessarily visiting the NHIS National Health Insurance offices. All of these innovations in ICT have the ability to promote transparency, lower corruption tendencies, and increase citizen participation and efficiency.

    

The Digital Divide In Ghana

The Digital Divide In Ghana – How Bad Is It?

The digital divide is generally and empirically worse, if not worst in developing countries. Ghana happens to be one of those countries that have a huge inequality in its population, with regards to the number of citizens who have access to ICT and those who do not.

With the nation’s finance minister announcing a 1.75% tax on all digital financial transactions, the government has come under a barrage of fierce and fiery criticism and backlash aimed at pressuring the authorities to withdraw the new tax or drop it to 1% and also, probably cap the amount that should exact the said tax.

There has been a lot of fire directed at the vice president, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia who has become the champion of digitization and digitalization of Ghana’s economy. Having spearheaded and inaugurated several digitization and digitalization interventions such as paying via the QR Code, MOMO Interoperability, and now, linking all other identity cards to the Ghana card, citizens have expressed fears that the proposed tax would take away greatly from the digitization and digitalization agenda currently in the fore.

In Ghana, the digital divide is wide because of many reasons. The digital divide also cuts across different areas, spheres, sectors, and groupings of society. In this article, I will take a cursory look at the digital divide in Ghana, paying attention to the trend in education and analyzing trends in general internet users and non-users.

              Some causes of the digital divide

Some common causes of the digital gap that appear in many submissions on the subject include but not limited to;

i) expensive data as against low incomes.
ii) Inability to access computers. A fairly functioning laptop in Accra costs between ¢700-¢1500. Not many people in Ghana can afford that kind of money.
iii) there’s also a huge lack of usage skills and knowledge of computers.

               What is the state of affairs?

The state of affairs is that many rural and low-income communities around the world, including those in large urban centers, lack dependable, affordable internet access. According to www.weforum.org, these people will be further denied technology access as more devices and systems reliant on the internet come up.

                             Do you know?

Did you know that still, about four billion people do not have internet access?

               What are the facts of the matter?

Of poor households in Ghana, only about 1 in 7(14%) have a computer.6 out of 10 Ghanaians (61%) never or rarely (less than once a month) use the internet. Fewer than one in four go online at least a few times a month’. In a study of students and teachers in Cape Coast who have access to computers or the internet, the following came out; a greater percentage of SHS students have access to the internet at school, but the majority of students with access to the internet hardly use it.

It also became clear that the majority of teachers have access to the internet in their schools but hardly use it. It became evident that the few who use it do that mainly for their personal development. It is also obvious that a majority of schools are undecided on having ICT policy whiles a great number of schools have an ICT policy but do not have a budget to implement it.

     Trends in the digital divide in education

It is generally known that the higher an individual’s education level, the better their access to computers and the internet. So, post-graduates tend to have more access to technology-integrated education. Then undergrads and those in the colleges follow. The (SHS) Senior High School students are the next group of students whose access to computers and the internet is a bit high.

Basic schools, primary, and JHS is the last but one category of people whose access to computers and the internet is low. The lowest percentage of computer and internet access is occupied by those who do not have any formal education at all. I wonder if anything can be done to help improve access on the part of those who fall in the lowest percentage group, the informally educated or uneducated. With the primary and JHS students, however, much can be done to improve access. It is in this vane that governments have launched diverse programs meant at improving access to basic school children.

               Timely interventions

Even though some governments, especially in developing countries like India, Rwanda, and a few others are doing exceedingly well in implementing technology-integrated education, many more are lagging behind against their will. This is where nonprofit, non-governmental organizations such as Lit Empowerment and Support Incorporated, an ICT-based philanthropic set-up come in strongly to augment what central governments are doing in Ghana and the United States.

Lit Empowerment and Support Incorporated invites governments, donors, financial and educational institutions, businesses, NGOs, philanthropists, and individuals to partner with it to provide ICT Labs and tools to schools and students on the worst end of the digital divide in Ghana and the USA respectively.

How can the digital divide in education be bridged?

Governments, more particularly those of developing countries should be able to roll out measures aimed at making data affordable for the masses. The same should be done in the case of the pricing of computers and IT tools. Taxes and duties on imported electronic and digital devices at the ports should be slashed drastically to help control prices.

By so doing, the average man in the streets can also buy and own a computer. When people are able to own their own computers, some sort of myth around their use gets broken over time. Reliable internet networks should be provided in the rural areas and further consolidated in the cosmopolitan areas. It is also vital that ICT Departments of schools introduce browsing sessions in their computer labs for students while taking steps to monitor usage to ensure that students use the internet for educational purposes and to prevent possible internet abuse.

Teachers at all levels of the educational system should be given ICT training to enhance their knowledge of the use of the internet. School administrators should prepare a budget for the implementation of well-planned ICT programs. Basic school pupils should be given laptops and tabs to enhance access. New classroom projects should contain ultra-modern ICT Laboratories. Where possible, some of these classrooms should be electronic.

The digital divide in education in Ghana is bad indeed There should be concerted efforts at closing the digital divide.