Fifthly, social equity or the problem of equitable access to IT developments across all parts of Malaysia. There is a growing divide between the “information-rich” and the “information-poor” in the international community of nations, as the notion of entry into the modern information society is totally irrelevant to most inhabitants of any country in which adult illiteracy is in excess of three-quarters of the population, and who are denied access to even basic information and whose average monthly income might be little more than the cost of a box of floppy disk.
Malaysia however must ensure that the transition towards an Information Society does not give rise to new inequities of the “Information-rich” and the “Information-poor”, creating another division of the population into an A-team and a B-team. The National IT Agenda and Action Plan should ensure that there would be ready communications across society with computer and telecommunications networks making up a coherent system, which should be as easily accessible as the telephone system.