By Yin Haodong, Research Department of Rural Economy, DRC; Xiao Rongmei, Chen Linqi & Huo Peng, China Academy of Information and Communications Technology; Xue Xinlong, University of International Business and Economics

Research Report, No.148, 2021 (Total 6213) 2021-6-8

Abstract: With the overall penetration of digitalization and informatization in industrial sectors, digital economy has become a new driving force for the inclusive growth of rural and urban areas by accelerating the integration of the primary, secondary and tertiary industries in an organic fashion. However, the relatively poor digital skills of rural residents have constrained the sharing of digital economic dividends among the whole people, hindering the modernization of agriculture and rural areas. Owing to their emphasis on digital skills training, developed economies in Europe and the U.S. have formed, through pilot practice, a digital skills cultivation system with a wide coverage from top-level design to concrete measures and have gained rich experience in improving the digital skills of the whole people. Their experience is highly relevant to China in terms of its efforts to flesh out its digital skills cultivation system. In the future, we need to accelerate the formulation of the digital skills development strategy covering the entire population, including the establishment of the educational courses and service systems related to digital skills, set up a digital skills training alliance with the participation of various parties, and strengthen the digital and information technologies application capacities of rural residents and the vulnerable groups by providing effective digital skills training for them in a bid to enable all people to have access to benefits brought about by digital and information technologies.

Keywords: digital skills, digitalization, rural residents, rural areas