The role of non-formal education in promoting media literacy in Estonia
Estonia is a country where education and educational activities related to digitization and media literacy have been given a lot of attention. This is best supported by the fact that Estonia is ranked fourth in 2023 according to the Media Literacy Index 2023 research published by Open Society Institute Sofia.
Non-formal education and the involvement of the NGO sector in the education process contributed a lot to the growth and development of media literacy and digitization within the population of Estonia. Therefore, we can say that non-formal education and the non-governmental sector have a very prominent role in the media literacy of the population, because Estonia is a country whose population has shown significant results in the more skilled use of computers in the period from 2021 to 2023.
When it comes to the most active and prominent actors in the field of non-formal education, we would definitely single out the Estonian Debating Society and Propastop, whose main tasks are to check the accuracy of facts in the public, and to suppress disinformation activities through research. It is also important to highlight the Estonian Union for Child Welfare, Opinion Festival, Estonian North Atlantic Treaty Organization (Baltic Center for Media Excellence, 2022), which also contribute to the media literacy of the population of Estonia.
The NGO sector in the domain of media literacy has also a slightly different role in this field and is more focused on organising and implementing international projects for the purpose of exchanging good practices. All these international projects, whether large or small, mostly require the cooperation of the state and non-governmental sectors or are fully funded by the departments of Education and Youth Board – HARNO, which clearly shows how open Estonia is to work with the NGO sector, and what positive stories come from and cooperation.
Different positive stories of joint cooperation between the governmental and non-governmental sectors are presented on the National Youth Information Portal Teevit and Safer Internet Centre in Estonia – Targalt Internetis whose purpose is to provide young people with useful information that can serve them in making choices and decisions in life.
To learn more about the media literacy in Estonia, check the newest research we have published as part of the project “Media and Information Literacy for climate change and environmental topics”.
Research can be accessed on this link.