The FCC yesterday announced its plan to prep Americans for the information age by creating a volunteer “digital literacy corps.” But based on the government’s track record in implementing a similar technology-oriented volunteer plan, the idea will never meet the FCC’s lofty expectations.

The call for the corps is part of the agency’s forthcoming national broadband plan, which is due to Congress by March 17. Commissioner Mignon Clyburn announced the literacy plan at the “digital inclusion summit” co-hosted by the FCC and Knight Foundation.

She said the definition of literacy in the 21st century must be broadened to include teaching people how to use the Internet safely “and to its fullest potential,” and she added that “digital ambassadors” are needed to do the job. “This is about neighbors helping neighbors get online.”

The plan may sound good in theory, but in practice, government-run do-gooder programs rarely do the good they promise. Bureaucracy just gets in the way.

It has happened in the tech space before, with the push for a National Emergency Technology Guard after the 2001 terrorist attacks. The idea was to mobilize tech experts to help recover and rebuild communications after disasters. Congress authorized the guard when it created the Homeland Security Department in 2003, but it took five years for the department to provide a mere $320,000 to create a pilot program.

“This has taken way too long,” Oregon Democrat Ron Wyden, a leading Senate advocate of NET Guard, told National Public Radio in 2008. “The Department of Homeland Security should have set this up, you know, years ago. … [I]t shouldn’t be taking five years to get off the ground.”

Now think about digital literacy. A central theme at yesterday’s summit was that technology has become essential. Commissioner Michael Copps said that high-speed Internet service “intersects with every great challenge confronting our nation.” Indeed, that belief is the basis for proposing a digital literacy corps in the first place — giving all Americans equal opportunities at success.

But with technology being that valuable, the country cannot afford to wait five years or more for the government to create a volunteer bureaucracy. More to the point, it doesn’t need to wait. The private sector is perfectly capable of doing the job now.

It did so after Hurricane Katrina, one of the nation’s worst natural disasters. Homeland Security’s funding for NET Guard didn’t materialize until three years after that disaster, but tech companies and volunteers filled the void the government had vowed to eliminate.

The same thing is happening on the digital education front, too. That much was obvious at yesterday’s summit, which featured a “voices of inclusion” segment where citizens old and young explained how learning to use technology had changed their lives.

The FCC is right to highlight the need for digital literacy, but Americans already are learning what they need from teachers in the private sector. They don’t need Uncle Sam as a principal.