Digital skills development
An opportunity to drive equality
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The COVID-19 pandemic provided a strong impetus for digital solutions, highlighting the importance of digital skills in all areas of life, including the workplace. Therefore, developing digital skills and making them accessible to the most vulnerable and excluded children and adolescents could be one of the most decisive factors in achieving equal opportunities.
However, households’ access to connectivity is a major challenge in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Digital skills would allow children and adolescents, especially those from the most excluded populations, to perform better in their daily lives, successfully transition to a decent job or start a business, and participate productively in their communities.
What do we do?
At the regional level, we support our country offices in their efforts to:
- Influence policies, programs and budgets to develop digital skills in education systems.
- Generate evidence to support educational, social and technological decision-making processes involving entrepreneurs, national and local authorities, officials, and technical teams.
- Promote the exchange of knowledge and experiences between sectors and countries.
Our commitment goes beyond technology
School trajectories often aggravate existing gender gaps. In most countries in the region, men outperform women in science and mathematics.
This happens because:
We support efforts in Bolivia, Brazil, Guatemala and Peru to advance the Skills4Girls portfolio and increase investment to develop digital, technological, science and math-related skills in girls and adolescents.
For UNICEF, it is critical to promote the training of girls and female adolescents in science, technology, engineering and mathematics to:
- Strengthen their self-confidence and resilience.
- Overcome barriers that promote gender inequality and prevent female adolescents from acquiring key life skills and knowledge.
- Promote the generation of evidence and support countries’ development through women’s participation in careers related to science, technology, engineering and mathematics, traditionally associated with boys and men.
Together with the UNESCO office in Montevideo and Arigatou International, we strive to ensure that online activities are carried out safely by supporting digital citizenship and coexistence skills for teachers, children, and adolescents.