WHEN 18-year-old Universiti Malaysia Sabah student Veveonah Mosibin put up a video in June last year of how she had to climb a tree to get a strong and uninterrupted Internet connection to sit for online university examinations, the deputy communications and multimedia minister refused to believe the issue was real.
The divide between the poor student in rural Sabah and the deputy minister in urban Peninsular Malaysia was too big to fathom.
Sadly, the digital divide became all too clear as the pandemic wore on, when the whole country was in lockdown and had to depend on the Internet, only to discover that our digital infrastructure is not at all dependable.
While a fast, stable and affordable Internet infrastructure was a nice fantasy to have during normal times, not having it when everyone was locked in, and work and education absolutely depended on it, became a living nightmare.
So, while Malaysia should already have achieved developed-nation status in 2020, the sad reality is that in 2021, we are very much a still-developing country.
The government is not unaware of this. In its 12th Malaysia Plan (12MP), tabled on Monday, the government acknowledges that "the digital divide among the rakyat has created inequality in economic opportunities and widened the rich-poor gap", and that "lack of accessibility is among the main factors contributing to the widening digital divide".
Broadband subscription for the B40 group stands at only 49.3 per cent, compared with 90.7 per cent for the M40, and 99.7 per cent for the T20. But, as with the M40 and T20, B40 children still need to be educated.
B40 adults need to work, be it in the virtual office, or in the gig economy, or via e-commerce — even delivery riders need Internet connectivity. But, access to a digital device and a fast enough broadband connection costs money, which the most vulnerable cannot afford.
Hence, it is not uncommon to read of families with six children taking turns to use one mobile phone to attend online classes. The government's 12MP aim is to get 100 per cent of urban and rural households subscribed to the Internet.
Quite how it will achieve this when the telecommunications infrastructure is still wanting remains to be seen.
But, the saddest thing is that these are the plans for 2020-2025, when they should already be a given by now, like clean water and reliable energy supply.
As we plan to meet the challenges of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, it gallops on without us while we are still tracing our blueprints.
The government's overall 12MP ambition is for "inclusive development", in which it has set lofty goals of enhancing socioeconomic development, addressing poverty, reducing the regional development gap, improving regional balance and inclusion, decentralising the economy from ultra-urban areas, and strengthening social safety nets.
But, none of this will be possible if people are not able to get a good education and earn a decent living.
Handouts are all very well, but, nothing beats being able to climb the socioeconomic ladder for oneself. What is the game-changer? It is digital connectivity.
The lockdown has shown us that there is a bigger world out there, and so much more to be gained from being connected, whether mid-pandemic or post-pandemic. In this third decade of the 21st century, this should be a basic human right.