By LI Linxu

Digital technology has become an integral part of daily life and to meet the requirements of the new age, China is stepping up efforts to improve its people's digital literacy and skills.

By 2025, the digital adaptability, competence and creativity of the general public will be significantly improved, and their digital literacy and skills are expected to be on par with that of developed countries, according to the goals of a new outline released by the Central Cyberspace Affairs Commission.

The document, titled the Action Outline for Upgrading Digital Literacy and Skills of the General Public, details the country's main objectives and major actions towards building a digital society.

The fourth Digital China Summit was held in Fuzhou, Fujian province, this April. (PHOTO: VCG)

Although China is a big country in terms of the number of netizens, it still has a long way to go to become a cyber powerhouse. In the field of digital literacy and skills, it currently lags behind the leading developed countries.

Improving the digital literacy and skills of the general public is an inevitable course marching towards a cyber powerhouse, said an official from the Cyber Administration of China in a media response, adding that it is also an effective way to convert the demographic quantity dividend into demographic quality dividend.

Focusing on public demand, four application scenarios are highlighted in the outline, including digital life, digital work, digital study and digital innovation.

Family, community, travel and shopping are the high frequency application scenarios for digital technologies and services. Smart home, smart community, smart travel and e-commerce are gaining momentum.

To raise the level of high-quality digital life, it is of great importance to improve the usability, accessibility and compatibility of digital devices, and to boost the general public's willingness and ability to use digital resources and tools, says the outline.

In the field of digital work, industrial workers, farmers, new occupation population and public servants are key groups. The outline puts forward a series of measures to improve their ability to learn and use digital tools.

Digital learning should be a life long course, emphasizes the outline, calling for establishing a whole-life digital learning system.

Enterprises will play a leading role in developing digital talents. At the same time, a data driven R&D paradigm will be explored.