ONE of the challenges facing many countries is the eradication of illiteracy which is a hindrance to socio-economic development, the fight against poverty and people liberating themselves from oppression.
Many policy analysts consider literacy rates as a crucial measure to enhance a region’s human capital. This claim is made on the grounds that literate people can be trained less expensively than illiterate people, generally have a higher socio-economic status and enjoy better health and employment prospects. Policy makers also argue that literacy increases job opportunities and access to higher education. In Kerala, India, for example, female and child mortality rates declined dramatically in the 1960s, when girls who were schooled according to the education reforms after 1948 began to raise families. Recent researchers argue, however, that such correlations may have more to do with the overall effects of schooling rather than literacy alone. In addition to the potential for literacy to increase wealth, wealth may promote literacy, through cultural norms and easier access to schools and tutoring services.
But the problem of illiteracy is not only one facing the developing world, even though it may be more pronounced there, it also affects the developed world.
Today one in five adults is still not literate and about two-thirds of them are women while 67.4 million children are out of school.
The U.S. Department of Education’s 2003 statistics suggest that 14% of the population – or 32 million adults – have very low literacy skills.
A very important aspect of illiteracy that is overlooked is that it virtually immobilises the oppressed and impoverished from liberating themselves from the shackles of exploitation.
The famed Brazilian educator and author Paulo Freire actually advanced the thesis that the literacy and education are crucial to the liberation of the oppressed.
In one f his works the Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1970), Freire differentiates between the two positions in an unjust society, the oppressor and the oppressed. He advocates that education allows the oppressed to regain their humanity and overcome their condition; however, he acknowledges that in order for this to take effect, the oppressed have to play a role in their own liberation. As he states: “No pedagogy which is truly liberating can remain distant from the oppressed by treating them as unfortunates and by presenting for their emulation models from among the oppressors. The oppressed must be their own example in the struggle for their redemption.”
The Government of Guyana has long recognised the importance and correlation of literacy and education in the fight against poverty and empowering of the under privileged and as such has been placing increasing focus and emphasis on the education sector.
And this policy was reiterated by Education Minister at the recent students rally to mark World Literacy Day at Queens College when he remarked: “Every child who leaves the school system must receive a quality education and be qualified to embark on a career of life-long learning.”
He added that the Ministry of Education has the vision on the way forward and has instituted several programmes to achieve its objectives; but underlined that every teacher, parent, student and member of the corporate community has to play their part in the process.