I read so I exist

by Jasvinder Sharma
November 9, 2011

http://www.weeklyblitz.net/1930/i-read-so-i-exist

Overcoming the problem of illiteracy is one of the most urgent challenges facing the world. A third of the world's population is not literate. 98 per cent of illiterate people live in the third world. Education is an essential component of human resource development. It is an indispensable tool for learning and communication and is a precondition for individual growth and national development.

Education tends to have an inverse relationship with the population growth rate. Education may influence fertility directly or indirectly. There may be a direct influence in the form of altering behavior patterns and attitudes towards small family norms. Indirect influences may be in the form of urbanization, rate of female employment and age of marriage.

Progress in education and differential changes in the state of development across and within a region are a function of complex interplay between a large number of socio-economic and geo-political variables. Therefore, for each and every stage of educational progress and development transition, there is a need to understand and explore a package of interacting variables. These are compatible with the existing and prospective social, economic and political environment.

Recently efforts were made to link the rise of mass literacy with economic development during the industrial revolution in Europe. It has been accepted that the rise in literacy and educational level was the basic cause of economic growth. Current research seems to contradict such an assertion by showing that some countries like Sweden had a high rate of literacy well before the industrial revolution.

On the contrary, the United Kingdom had a rather low rate of literacy during the period of rapid economic growth. Increased education and literacy in the UK were made possible by the growth of technology which allowed more time for schooling of children. There is definite correlation between poverty and literacy. There is reason to believe poverty reinforces illiteracy by forcing parents and children to work full time, earning their living at low level unskilled jobs and thus forgoing schooling and other forms of education.

Illiteracy in turn reinforces poverty. It forms part of the complex of deprivation and discrimination called the "culture of poverty." This is important because illiteracy is taken as being lack of education or more specifically the lack of three R's – reading, writing and arithmetic. The illiteracy is related with high levels of poverty. It accompany low share of assets and high illiteracy rates. As poverty declines, asset shares increase and illiteracy rates declines. But a host of other factors like value system, earning, spending and borrowing patterns, inter-personal, inter-household, inter-caste and socio-economic relationships also play their determining roles.

The essence of literacy is the skill to read and write. But one does not merely read. One reads something. Literacy brings the reader in touch with modern, scientific and non-traditional knowledge. Literacy sharpens consciousness and adds potential to the individual's capacity for participation. Literate parents are more likely to protect their progeny. Literate mothers die less often in childbirth and are known to lose fewer infants, saving them through immunization from diseases.

Physical survival in the new technological jungle is becoming impossible without literacy. In Kenya, hundreds of people die each year because they cannot read the labels on chemical fertilizers and poisonous pesticides they routinely use in their fields. Literacy is an important tool for economic survival. It increases the effectiveness of all transactions made by the literate in his or her environment. The newly literate farmers have learnt entrepreneurship and management skills.

Literacy has changed the social psychology of the family. Families with literate member are not vulnerable to the outsider as they can read their letters, bills, deeds and contracts. On the other hand, illiteracy has been known to breed isolation, suicide, recklessness, drug abuse, crime, teenage marriage and early motherhood. Literate people are often able to break out of the stranglehold of social institutions that oppress them. Women form 63 per cent of illiterate population. The Algerian reformer Ibn Badis observed, "Educate a boy and you educate one person. Educate a girl and you educate a nation. "

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