Social transformation for the 21st century: Impact of e-Community centers on e-literacy in rural Malaysia

Transformation literacies required in the new economy characterized by changes in social, political, economic and civic life that have come in the wake of globalisation in the 21^st century, demand Malaysians to possess new literacies to help them cope with the enormous changes. New literacies include e-literacy which consists of awareness of the IT and the information environment, confidence in using generic IT and information tools and applications, evaluation of information-handling operations and products, which translates into the ability to access, understand, analyse and critique information and the capacity to produce, communicate and use knowledge from various sources for varied tasks and activities. Recognizing that IT and access to knowledge has a potent force for transforming social, economic and political life of rural Malaysia, its government had introduced telecommunication centres or e-community centres in rural communities throughout the country since 1997. This paper explores the effort at measuring impact of these telecentres on the development of e-literacy in terms of IT awareness and readiness as well as e-literacy practices among rural youth in particular. Malaysia has about 4.4 million youth and 60% of them are located in the rural areas. This fact highlights the important role of rural youth in the social transformation of rural Malaysia for the 21^st century.