An Adaptation of DigComp for the South African Context

The rapid rise of disruptive technologies is fundamentally changing how we live, work, communicate, and relate to each other. Governments are implementing digital transformation strategies to improve service delivery, citizen participation, and information-sharing mechanisms. South Africa has identified digital skills as a critical challenge to becoming a professional and globally competitive knowledge society. However, the 2016 Global IT Report of the World Economic Forum ranks South Africa 95th out of 139 countries on the skills pillar due to poor education quality in math and science and a lack of effective use of digital opportunities. This paper is based on a PhD study aimed at measuring the digital competence of South African citizens. A unique definition of digital competence has been derived from the literature in pursuit of understanding the characteristics of digital competence. Furthermore, models and frameworks that measure digital competence were evaluated for their suitability to the South African context, which resulted in the selection of the EU DigComp framework. An adaptation of the same was developed for the South African context.