KUALA LUMPUR: A group of local journalists who are members of an international grassroots journalism organisation is embarking on an information literacy effort targeting secondary school students and youths in the country.
The information literacy workshop by the Kuala Lumpur chapter of Hacks Hackers (H/H KL) was started following the move by the government which lowered the voting age from 21 to 18.
H/H KL co-organiser Kuek Ser Kuang Keng said the objective of the effort was to produce informed and respective digital citizens among the younger generation by empowering them with the correct information and knowledge from the internet.
“Our pilot project will be next month involving a secondary school in Johor.
“Currently our target groups are Form Three students who are currently 15 and would be able to vote in another three years.
“We want the younger generation to make good use of the internet and not just spreading click bait contents. We want to empower them, educate them on how they could gain knowledge from the internet,” he said at the “Building Malaysia’s Resistance Against Fake News: Diagnosis and Antidote” seminar here today.
The workshop comprised four modules which he said would be presented in a fun and interactive manner.
Apart from helping participants to identify false information, he said the workshop also aimed at educating the younger generation on how to use critical thinking skills to assess the quality of information available online.
“For example, a lot of children and Malaysians do not know how to do that (differentiate between reputable publication and bad content). So we are trying to help them to have the skills and the tools to do that,” he said.
Participants will be taught how to recognise the power of the digital technology in shaping their views on others as well as understanding between hate speech and free speech.
He said the organisation was looking for trainers among journalists, lecturers, teachers, youth workers as well as celebrities as it embarks on implementing the initiative.
“Among our long-term plan is to train a network of trainers in various parts of the country so that we can deploy them if there are schools at the respective location which are interested to organise the workshop.”
Apart from relying for sponsors from the government and Google Malaysia, he said H/H KL was also working closely with non-governmental organisations, members of parliament, state assemblymen and school clubs.