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Digital, Media and Information Literacy are required for Building Digital Bangladesh

Syeda Mukta Begum is working as a library officer in Tanglin Trust School (TTS) Singapore. She also worked

as a Contributing Editor in the Librarian Times. She secured her B. A (Hons.), M.A and MPhil, from the
Department of Information Science and Library Management in the University of Dhaka. Moreover, Ms Mukta
completed a teaching course under the Aga Khan University, Karachi, Pakistan. Prior to joining TTS, she
worked as librarian in International School Dhaka, Ebenezer International School Dhaka, Bangladesh

National Women Lawyers Association and Democracy watch. She is a life member of LAB, BALID; LAS, and
ISLN in Singapore.

Digital literacy (DL), media literacy (ML) and information literacy (IL), are the educational process to

develop critical thinking, analyzing and creativity skills for lifelong learning and it is very essential
nowadays for everyone in this revolutionary world. It is now a prerequisite for our society to stay away

from fake news, misinformation and disinformation.

In this unprecedented time of the COVID-19, people are struggling with the challenges of too much

information about pandemic in the innumerable digital platforms including social media. In my personal
experiences through social media platforms such as Facebook, if anyone shared information whether it
was real or fake, some people just continuously shared those to others without justification. Some people

found information without verification intentionally or unintentionally, they have just shared it with others
without consideration, can create a burning issue for the society. Nowadays most people search for health

information online every day. Sometimes it was frustrating to understand to get the actual information
from the platforms like TV Channels, newspapers, social media including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram

and others etc.

As I am working with the students, one thing is always coming in my mind: are we prepared for another

pandemic like COVID-19 in the near future? I don’t think so. In this pandemic, we are struggling to cope
with modern technologies as well as a number of digital tools to offer our services and communicate with
our colleagues in the workplace. We are overwhelmed to cope with this new innovative digital resource

every day. Should we just see it and not think about something further for our new generation in the near
future? I think we shouldn’t. I imagine we should take some initiatives to create a space for our young
generation to learn, explore, and create through digital media to literate them in their early stage. We can

create an innovation centre, or maker space or hackerspace to create opportunities for them to develop
their innovation and creativity skills.

Bangladesh is a very resourceful country, but we just need to adopt new technologies to use our resources
in a pragmatic way. In my point of view, IL, DL and ML should be included in our national curriculum

to ensure a digital literate person for the digital Bangladesh. I also strongly recommend that there should
be hands-on activities as well as practical knowledge for the students’ to develop their critical thinking

skills, creativity for lifelong learning. I also presume that every school, colleges, universities and other
educational institutions should have a makerspace, design centre or innovation lab to develop their DL

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