The Department of Census and Statistics (DCS) reports that computer literacy in Sri Lanka has increased to 39% in 2023, with digital literacy at 63.5%.
In its latest release, the DCS highlighted that 20.2% of households own either a desktop or laptop computer, with the urban sector showing higher literacy rates in both computer and digital skills.
Household Computer Ownership:
- 20.2% of households in the country have at least one computer.
- Urban sector: 34.0%
- Rural sector: 18.1%
- Estate sector: 4.6%
Provincial Computer Availability:
- Western Province: 33.5%
- Eastern Province: 8.6%
- The percentage of households with a computer varied between 20% and 23% from 2021 to 2023.
Computer Literacy:
- A person aged 5 to 69 is considered computer literate if they can use a computer independently.
- The Computer Literacy Rate is calculated as the proportion of the computer literate population (aged 5-69) as a percentage of the total population within that age group.
Survey Highlights:
- The Computer Literacy Rate increased by 4.7 percentage points from 2021 to 2023, reaching 39.0%.
- Urban sector: 52.9%
- Rural sector: 37.1%
- Estate sector: 17.9%
- Western Province: 49.9%
- Uva Province: 26.5%
- Males: 40.9%
- Females: 37.2%
- Youths (15-19 years): 79.4%
- Higher education (GCE A/L or above): 80.1%
- English literate individuals: 77.4%
- Employed population aware of computers: 72.4%
- High computer literacy in Senior Officials and Managers (90.9%), Professionals (96.0%), Technicians and Associate Professionals (94.0%), and Clerical workers (94.1%)
- Even among elementary occupation workers, 39.0% are computer literate.
Digital Literacy:
- 63.5% of the population aged 5 to 69 are digitally literate, indicating a shift from personal computers to smartphones and tablets.
- 51.2% of individuals in this age group used the internet at least once in the past twelve months.
- Urban sector: highest usage of email and internet.
- Age group 20-24: higher internet and email usage than other age groups.
- 18.6% of the household population aged 5-69 used email at least once in the past year.
