Turkey Has Joined the Digital Education Initiative of Vodafone Turkey Foundation Including 7 European Countries

Aiming to contribute to social and economic development via foundations established by Vodafone in its operational countries, Global Vodafone Foundation has launched a new education initiative to improve digital literacy skills across Europe. Supported by Vodafone Foundations in Turkey, Germany, Hungary, Netherlands, Portugal, Romania, and Spain , the initiative aims to develop skills such as effective use of digital technologies, teamwork, critical thinking, and problem-solving. The initiative, aimed at creating an inclusive, egalitarian, and sustainable impact in digital education, will ensure that both students and trainers use digital technologies in an innovative, creative and self-confident way in and out of school for educational purposes. The initiative will not only share the best practices with trainers but also encourage collaborations with local partners.

Moreover, the joint initiative is also part of the program, launched by the Global Vodafone Foundation in 14 European countries last year, with an expectancy to reach 16 million people by 2025. Implemented by the Vodafone Foundation with an investment of 20 million Euros, the program aims to provide individuals with the skills and confidence required to be successful in the digital society.

Mr. Hasan Süel: "We are pleased to be a part of a global education initiative"

Noting their happiness to be a part of the joint initiative launched by Vodafone Foundations operating in Europe to increase digitalization in education, Mr. Hasan Süel, the Chair of Vodafone Turkey Foundation, stated:

"With the pandemic, digital education and training are crucial, all the more so. Improving the digital literacy skills of youngsters is now a necessity. With our 'Coding Tomorrow' project implemented in collaboration with the Habitat Association, we, as Vodafone Turkey Foundation, also join the initiative launched by 7 Vodafone Foundations to boost digital education in Europe. With this project implemented to raise generations ready for the digital future, we provide our children aged 7-14 across Turkey with coding training, the language of the digital world. Until today, we have reached over 120,000 children. Our goal is to provide coding training to 70,000 more children in the upcoming period. As part of the project, we have recently started to open fully equipped technology classrooms in 30 rural schools. To date, our project has been shown as a model to the world many times. In 2017, the 'Coding Tomorrow' project was included in Vodafone Group's 'Connected Education' report. Last year, the project was also among the projects entitled to utilize the 20 million Euro fund allocated by our Group with Turkey to develop digital skills and support digital education in 13 European countries. With our project, a guest of the UN World Summit on the Information Society in the previous days, we are thrilled to join an education campaign to be implemented across Europe. While spreading our project nationwide, we will continue to promote it more globally."

OECD's new report on digital education

The announcement of the digital education initiative launched by the Global Vodafone Foundation across Europe also includes the report titled "21st Century Readers: Developing Literacy Skills in a Digital World" , published by the OECD and co-financed by Vodafone Germany Foundation. The report, which also includes Turkey, highlights that although 88% of 15-year-olds in OECD countries have access to the internet and digital devices, only 54% of those receive school training on determining the accuracy of the information they obtain. According to another corresponding OECD data, only 9% are equipped with advanced reading skills with the ability to distinguish facts from opinions in the text they read. Besides gaining significance with the pandemic, this skill enables people to detect biased information, fake news, and malicious content in digital resources.

Moreover, the OECD's new report shows that the ability to receive training on identifying biased information in the digital environment differs in each country. In this respect, students inAustralia, Canada, Denmark, and the USA have almost twice as many opportunities as their peers in Israel, Latvia, the Slovak Republic, Slovenia, and Switzerland .

The OECD's report also offers suggestions for bridging the divide in digital education. Accordingly, critically understanding, remembering, summarizing, and evaluating information is considered a must for developing digital literacy skills. Also, the method and motive in using digital devices and the internet play a determining role in increasing digital literacy skills. For instance, the association between time spent using digital devices and reading performance is positive in Australia, Denmark, New Zealand, and the United States, where the internet is mainly used for studying.

Students in Turkey are successful in distinguishing facts from opinions

The Turkey results of the OECD's "21st-Century Readers" report show that 61% of students had both a connection to the Internet at home and a computer they could use for schoolwork at the time of the pandemic, an increase of 47 points compared to 2003. In Turkey, 49% of students also reported being trained at school on how to recognize whether the information they access online is biased. As in most OECD countries, Turkey's relationship between reading performance and time spent using digital devices for schoolwork is also negative.

The report also reveals that the ability of students in Turkey to recognize facts from opinions in the digital environment is above the OECD average. The research task conducted for the report regarding distinguishing fact from opinion was answered correctly by 63% of students in Turkey. Thus, Turkish students exceeded the OECD average of 47%, achieving a result close to that in Denmark, the Netherlands, the UK, and the USA.

PISA 2018 as a primary resource

Prepared by OECD in collaboration with Vodafone Germany Foundation, the report titled "21st-Century Readers: Developing Literacy Skills in a Digital World" offers an in-depth analysis of how students develop reading skills to navigate the technology-rich 21st century. Among the primary sources of the report and prepared as part of the OECD's Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), the PISA 2018 report examines the digital literacy skills of 15-year-old children.