Wednesday 30 November 2022
Minister for Information and Communications Technology Hon. Timothy Masiu believes digital skills are vital in ensuring people move with the advance trend of digitalization.
Speaking during the high – level panel discussions at the 17th Internet Governance Forum hosted at the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA)/UN Conference Centre in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Mr Masiu said digital skills are “extremely important and Papua New Guinea is grappling with it”.
“We are working hard to improve digital skills for our students, government workers, and our small and medium enterprise, and we are working with our national education department and our universities to upgrade the curriculum in schools and embed digital/ICT literacy into the curriculums.
“Our plan is to work closely with the youth, primary and secondary school students and conduct training for them.
“The students will then educate their parents on digital and ICT literacy . We are encouraging our industry and our partners to support digital literacy for our farmers, as well as our SMEs.”
Minister Masiu further stated that DICT along with its partners have embarked on building ICT Labs in schools and community centers to cater for respective communities, and in particular , youths, girls, persons with disabilities, and others who can experiment with these new technologies.
He told the forum, there are also plans in place, to create several awareness activities throughout the country to educate people on digital skills, as well as working with those in the industry in developing relevant training programs.
He said and MOU was signed recently with the PNG University of Technology to host such a program and are also working with the PNG Computer Society and the PNG Digital ICT Cluster on other digital literacy projects.
“Another idea that was discussed at our UAS workshop was to create a curriculum and some type of certification program to give our youth and others a leg up on seeking jobs,” Minister Masiu added.