South Koreans, girls are tops in digital literacy: OECD

Afp
Tuesday 28 June 2011 00:00 BST
Comments

Your support helps us to tell the story

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.

At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.

The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.

Your support makes all the difference.

Young South Koreans, and girls, learn the best from computers and the Internet according to a survey of 15 year-olds in 19 countries, the OECD said on Monday.

The OECD, which groups 34 of the world's most advanced economies, tested the digital literacy of students in 16 member countries as well as Colombia and the Chinese cities of Hong Kong and Macao as part of its Programme for International Assessment.

In most countries, the results were in line with the results of a 2009 survey in print reading skills, the OECD said.

But students performed "significantly better" in digital reading than print in Korea, Australia, New Zealand, Sweden, Iceland and Macao, the survey demonstrated.

The opposite was true in Poland, Hungary, Chile, Austria, Hong Kong and Colombia.

The Paris-based Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development said that boys improved their performance when compared to the print survey, but still trailed the girls.

When using computers, "girls scored an average of 24 points more, compared to a difference of 39 points in print, the equivalent to one year of schooling," the OECD said.

The OECD said computer use at school had a small impact on results, while home-use proved influential.

Educators should better integrate computers into curricula and classrooms and policy-makers should invest more "in training teachers to use computers for teaching," the organisation said.

"Digital technologies provide a great opportunity to make students more active participants in classroom learning," Barbara Ischinger, director of education at the OECD said.

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in