Design and implementation of digital literacy training programme: Findings of a quasi- experimental study from rural India.

In India, digital divide is evident among rural sections of the society among women. For bridging this gap, the physical access to information and communications technology (ICT) along with training to harness these skills is important. This would empower the girls to gain more control over their health, finances, and safety, and can more freely assert their voice and agency. The project aimed to measure the knowledge and skills about the digital tools and its impact in different spheres of life (status of schooling, uptake of government schemes and mobility) for the adolescent girls before and after the implementation of the digital literacy training programme (DLTP) in rural India. The project was implemented in eight blocks of District Gumla of Jharkhand for three years from 2017-2020. The evaluations were conducted in three terms that is, baseline, midline and endline by using quasi-experimental research design. A quantitative questionnaire was developed to collect data from school dropout girls of 10-19 years. The sample coverage for intervention and comparison arm was 314 and 272 at the baseline, 318 and 260 at the midline, and 402 vs 202 in the endline. A state-of-the-art training curriculum was designed covering various components of digital literacy (hardware, software, applications, internet, emailing, social media, cyber security, education and career opportunities in the digital space). A team of facilitators were provided a laptop and a pico projector to conduct trainings in the intervention blocks. Majority of the participants were unmarried, lived along their parents and had ever attended school in both intervention and comparison arm. There was no significant difference in the proportion of girls having digital literacy score above median between intervention and comparison arm at the baseline. At the midline, the proportion of these girls with above median score was significantly higher in the intervention arm [n=203, 63.8%] as compared to the comparison arm [n=107, 41.2%]. Similarly, at the endline, the proportion of girls with higher median score for digital literacy increased significantly in the intervention arm [n=362, 90%] as compared to comparison arm [n=84, 41.6%]. The proportion of girls continuing education, physical access to ICT devices at home, exposure to mass media and perceived physical security increased in the intervention arm at the midline and endline as compared to comparison arm in the baseline. A significantly higher proportion of girls had knowledge about government schemes in the intervention arm as compared to comparison arm at the endline (p<0.05). We conclude that such tailor-made training programs which are weaved within cultural contexts can effectively bridge the digital gaps in resource scare settings. Along with this, they have the potential to bridge the literacy and economic gaps also within the community.