An Assessment of level of informatization of rural areas of Sri Lanka

Abstract

The primary focus of this study was to assess the level of Informatization, simple definition of utilization of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), in the Rural areas of Sri Lanka. In this study Rural Areas of Sri Lanka is defined as the areas outside the Municipal council and Urban council areas. This definition will lead to use Pradeshiya Saba (PS) divisions as Rural Areas. Presently there are 270 PS divisions in Sri Lanka. 205 PS divisions were used in this study excluding the North and East province PS divisions that were difficult to reach. The level of Informatization was measured as an index value, which is referred as the Informatization Index. In the Asia Pacific region different type of Informatization Indices are calculated in different countries. In this study author had defined a mechanism to calculate the Informatization Index for Sri Lanka, by considering number of indices related to Informatization. This Informatization Index was calculated using 48 measures categorized under 11 sub components of ICT. For the index calculation multistage cluster sampling was used and the index was measured for the whole sample and first stage clusters considered. According to the results obtained from this study, it was observed that in rural areas high utilization were there for utilization of Radio, Television, and Telephone. Mobile phone and Computer utilization is at a medium level. Level of utilization of ICT varies with the living location and working location also.