Digital Literacy Skills among Students in Technical Education and Training (TET) Institutions, Tanzania

Digital literacy skills (DLS) are one of the essential factors which facilitate academic and non-academic life. The TET institutions remain relevant and attractive if they apply DLS in this era of the changing world. One of the major beneficiaries of DLS in TET are students. However, little is known about the extent to which the students are equipped with DLS. The particular angle of life in which such students apply DLS is as well not yet established. Therefore, this study evaluated the extent to which the TET students are equipped with DLS; and the angle of life from which the DLS are applied by the given students. The DLS of this study are theoretically grounded from digital literacy indicators for undergraduate students by Techataweewan and Prasertsin (2017). This study used a quantitative approach with a descriptive research design. The data were collected using questionnaires from 500 final-year students of four TET institutions sampled through a stratified random sampling technique. The collected data were analysed using descriptive statistics. The findings indicate that the students acquired operation skills (cognition, invention and presentation) and collaboration skills (teamwork, networking and sharing) to a large extent. On the other hand, the students acquired thinking skills (analysis, evaluation and creativity) and awareness skills (ethics, legal literacy and safeguarding self) to a small extent. Furthermore. The TET institutions should advocate more DLS to their students for them to balance the application in academic and non-academic life.