When digital progress leaves basic literacy behind

South Africa, like many of its peers in the Global South, is awash in digital optimism. Coding bootcamps for youth, broadband projects spanning provinces, and classrooms equipped with sleek tablets.

These are the emblems of a country striving to plug into the future. From government blueprints to private sector pilots, “digital literacy” has become a near-sacred phrase: a shorthand for inclusion, a promise of transformation.

Yet beneath this forward momentum lies a quieter crisis, one less visible, more stubborn, and ultimately more consequential, that threatens to trip us up.

According to the 2021 Progress in International Reading Literacy Study, 81% of South African Grade 4 learners are unable to read for comprehension, ranking the country last among 57 participating countries.

Meanwhile, many public schools have received some form of ICT equipment, from smartboards to tablets. The gap between tools and comprehension is not just a logistical mismatch; it’s a structural flaw in our national development model.

It’s a contradiction that exposes the tension between our aspirations and our foundations. Digital tools are being heralded as a means to leapfrog over poverty and inequality.

Without comprehension, learners may engage with technology, but they don’t necessarily learn from it.

Yet, for vast swaths of South Africa, particularly in under-resourced rural and township schools, the essential ability to read and interpret remains out of reach.

In such a context, the very platforms designed to empower can often become ornamental, or, in some cases, misleading.

In many schools, tablets arrive before books. Educational apps beam in from the cloud, while learners still wrestle with phonics and vocabulary.

“Digital inclusion” is too often reduced to a checkbox exercise: devices distributed, KPIs met, dashboards populated. But beneath the veneer, empowerment and meaningful learning remain elusive.

Educational research backs this. Studies by Unesco and the World Bank have shown that digital interventions yield minimal gains when foundational literacy is weak, especially in the early grades.

Without comprehension, learners may engage with technology, but they don’t necessarily learn from it. This reflects a deeper developmental dilemma: a pattern of tension between speed and depth, appearance and substance, disruption and continuity.

South Africa is not alone. Across the world, well-intentioned efforts to digitise are colliding with entrenched inequalities in basic education. In our rush to modernise, we are trying to build the roof before we’ve laid the floor.

This rush is partly fuelled by a quiet kind of technological determinism, the unspoken belief that the presence of technology will, by itself, catalyse development.

But the truth is more complex. Low literacy and poor connectivity intersect to deepen educational inequality, particularly in countries with fragile infrastructure and under-resourced schools. Technology, in these settings, can sometimes widen the gap it was meant to close.

Moreover, technology by itself rarely uplifts communities without accompanying literacy. Literacy is the scaffold upon which every other digital competency rests. It is what transforms a device from a toy into a tool.

Some educational tech tools, especially those that use gamified phonics or voice interaction, can support early reading development. But even these require a broader ecosystem of support: trained teachers, culturally relevant content and parental engagement.

They are not silver bullets; they are supplements. Worse still, our digital enthusiasm may be obscuring the very gaps we claim to close. When dashboards show “access” and reports tout “engagement,” we risk mistaking activity for progress.

We congratulate ourselves on metrics while the deeper work, building understanding, nurturing reasoning and fostering cognitive growth, remains undone.

We must begin by abandoning the false binary that pits digital literacy against basic literacy, as if one must precede or supplant the other. They are not sequential steps. They are intertwined competencies. The future belongs to those who can decode both sentences and screens.

This is not a call to slow digital investment. It is a call to deepen it not just in infrastructure, but in the human capabilities that make technology meaningful.

Digital platforms must be designed to support reading skills, especially in learners’ home languages. Government and private-sector investment should be conditional on measurable support for literacy, whether through bilingual content, teacher training, or reading diagnostics.

Equity demands that no child be forced to choose between books and bandwidth. It is not enough to have a device in hand; we must ensure the child holding it can understand the world it opens up.

The evidence is clear: technology only transforms learning when it is paired with strong systems, skilled educators, and a foundation of basic literacy.

Most crucially, we need to redefine what literacy means in the 21st century. It is no longer just the ability to decipher letters. It’s about navigating a digital world shaped by algorithms, misinformation and attention economies.

It’s about knowing what to trust, how to think critically, and how to make informed choices in a world flooded with content, opinions and competing truths.

And increasingly, it means understanding how digital platforms are designed to trigger emotional responses, exploit dopamine feedback loops, and keep us scrolling. This kind of awareness helps us pause, reflect and choose when to engage, rather than being manipulated by design.

Scientific literacy, in particular, matters more than ever, not because every child must become a scientist, but because everyone should be equipped to observe, question and reason.

It’s about recognising credible sources, understanding cause and effect, interpreting data, and applying logic in the face of uncertainty. In a world of health misinformation, climate denial, and algorithm-driven echo chambers, this kind of literacy is essential for personal and collective decision-making.

When we align our technological ambitions with these human fundamentals, digital inclusion becomes something richer than simple connectivity. It becomes capacity. It becomes agency. It becomes transformation.

South Africa’s digital future is not a mirage. However, to reach it, we must tether our optimism to something more substantial than screens.

We must begin not with code or apps, but with language, reasoning, emotional insight and scientific understanding.

Because only through the power of literacy – cognitive, emotional, scientific and critical – can technology fulfil its highest promise.

Without this deeper literacy, digital tech risks amplifying ignorance instead of dismantling it.

South Africa’s choice is clear: invest in both the roof and the foundation. Our digital future will not be secured by devices alone, but by children who can read, think and reason, children for whom technology becomes a bridge, not a barrier.

And perhaps in that understanding lies true progress.