Illiteracy and its ramifications on human mind
INTRODUCTION:
The Oxford English Dictionary quotes illiteracy as the condition of being unable to read or write. The state of illiteracy can be perceived through various intricate gestures of human pragmatics. A verdant literacy culture cannot be reaped through a mono-literal text. A healthy civilization of literacy demands an amalgamation of innumerable “literacies”. As human activity becomes global, America exports its own McDonalds all over the world. More “Italian” pizza is exported from the USA than from Italy. As the pragmatic dimension of human activity takes over, paradoxical situations arises that seem to be at odds with our literate values. With India still battling its toe-hold in the world global market, over the next few decades it faces a massive gap between its aspiration of double digit economic growth and its ability to produce qualified, employable, innovative, entrepreneurial people who can produce this growth. Educational apartheid have been prevailing in India since time immemorial. The deliberate under-funding of higher education, has led to a huge hiatus between the basic primary education and high quality higher education. Cocking the snook is the despicable condition of the primary pedagogy in our country. The educational apartheid have been wisely consorted by deficiencies in pre-primary and primary education system in India. Statistics reveal that an astonishing 40% first grade entrant could never complete primary education and are devoid of rudimentary education. In juxtaposition, the educational apartheid has even taken its toll over the minorities. Survey reveals that the basic levels of education among Muslims of South India and North India are contradistinctive. This steep deviation in testimony could be substantiated with the asymmetry in advent of Islam in India. Islam emerged in the northern territory of India from Iran and Central Asia which later coalesced in the feudal culture of the niche. But on the contrariness in the Southern cubicle, Islam emerged in with the Arab traders and saints, and later consolidated with the egalitarian culture of their southern domicile. The current political scenario prevailing in southern and northern India cause of this educational bisection. The political parties ruling in the 4 southern states of India have coalition governments that have given a fair amount of representation to the Muslim community. This political participation of the community in the states politics has endorsed the community leaders to represent the needs of the community in a better perspective. The political leverage the Muslim honchos have in these states have helped the community establish over 1000 secondary and high schools across the 4 states and more than 500 odd higher education colleges imparting courses from ordinary degree courses to technical courses like engineering, medicine, nursing, pharmacy and masters in computer applications. This has definitely helped the minorities in the 4 states to educate their children in various levels of proficiencies. The educational institutions as a whole in the 4 states irrespective of the community governing the institutions has helped in promoting education among the Muslims as these institutions encourage students and faculties from across the spectrum, thus creating a unifying atmosphere. Besides educational institutions the overall impact Information technology has made on the 4 states economically and socially has also helped the outlook of the Muslim community in the southern states. While the reasons for lower levels of literacy among the Muslims of north India is the political leadership in these states, who have neglected basic education at primary and secondary schools which has only added to the list of drop outs and illiterates in these states. The other major cause for the educational backwardness of these states is the high levels of illiteracy prevalent among Muslim women, who in turn don't help the cause of their children in becoming literates. Added to it certain agro based industries and other allied industries encourage child labour which only pushes education to the back seat. Thus the reasons for the literacy divide among the Muslim community in the two regions are the differences in the cultural, political, social and economical taboos prevalent in these states.
Over the decades illiteracy has always been blamed for precipitating poverty. But the real evidence of such assertion lies underneath. Over the past fifteen years, the proportion of the population living under extreme poverty in Pakistan has risen from 13 to 33 percent but illiteracy has declined during this period. Therefore, the explanation for the increase in poverty in Pakistan cannot be attributed to illiteracy. India has a considerably higher literacy rate than Pakistan but the incidence of poverty in India was comparable to that in Pakistan for many years. The recent trend in poverty reduction in India cannot be attributed to a sudden increase in literacy. This is not to argue that illiteracy does not matter. Clearly a literate work force can be much more productive than an illiterate one everything else remaining the same. And literacy can contribute positively to the quality of life of an individual for which reason it is considered a basic human right. But the fact remains that there is not sufficient evidence to establish that illiteracy is the most basic reason for poverty. Similarly, there is also no obvious link between poverty and the lack of democracy and human rights. The most dramatic reductions in poverty have been in East Asian countries under non-democratic governments much criticized for their human rights records. By comparison, poverty reduction in democratic India has been much slower. Once again, this is not an argument for authoritarian governance; there are many other unrelated benefits of democracy. The point is that there seems no direct link between the lack of democracy and the incidence of poverty. A closer look at the evidence might suggest that the causes of poverty have less to do with literacy or democracy and much more to do with economic and political policies.
The evidence of the impact of economic policies on poverty reduction is quite impressive. East Asia is a well documented example where the number of people living on less than one dollar a day has fallen almost two-thirds, from 720 million in 1975 to 210 million in 2002 almost entirely because of the rapidity of economic growth. India has also begun moving in the right direction after key economic reforms have relaxed the stifling grip of the ‘license Raj.’On the other side are countries like Pakistan where ruling groups allocate the bulk of national resources to defense, foreign policy adventures, fomenting domestic strife to manipulate political power or in stifling business to protect vested interests. It is not surprising that foreign and domestic investors are reluctant to invest in such countries. Without investment, there is little job growth; and without job growth little prospect of reduction in poverty. The political and economic choices of such ruling groups are not directly influenced or constrained by the illiteracy of their populations. Policies, good or bad, are all decided by people who are quite literate. What we need to explain is why some literate ruling groups make consistently bad political and economic decisions. One such decision is not investing in raising the literacy levels of their populations. Why did Sri Lanka and China invest in raising their literacy levels to over 90 percent while Pakistan and Bangladesh remain at around 40 percent? Why the rural education program in India is so weak compared to its urban program?
What we really need to explain is the persistence of illiteracy in some countries or parts of some countries. And this has to do with the interests, choices and decisions of the literate sections of these countries. When analysts begin to explain the political economy of continued impoverishment, when people understand the real causes of their poverty, and when political parties mobilize them on the basis of this understanding, perhaps then there will be hope for change in countries that have shortchanged their citizens by keeping them poor and illiterate.
The problems of illiteracy are not confined to India, but are also a malady in developed countries too. Daedalus, the journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, devoted the Spring 1990 issue to study the problem of Literacy in America. The Journal quotes Joseph Murphy, Chancellor, City University of New York who stated: “There are as many as 60 million illiterate and semi-literate adults in America today. Because poverty and illiteracy go hand in hand, the poor are disenfranchised, cut off from the democratic process. Any account that does not discuss the political interests served by allowing a large proportion of the American people to remain disenfranchised does not touch the heart of the matter. Before the Civil War in the United States it was illegal to teach slaves to read, for reading was acknowledged, as the tool needed to understand the social, historical, behavioral and physical law that controls the human condition. An apprehension of those forces invests human beings with the capacity to alter the conditions of their lives. It is not too far fetched to draw an analogy between slaves in the nineteenth century and illiterate Americans today.” While this may be a strong statement, it reflects the concern on the prevailing levels of illiteracy and its consequent effects. A leading German magazine ‘Stern’ point out that even in the United Kingdom, “One out of five adults in the land of William Shakespeare and Harry Potter is practically illiterate or has problems counting money in the purse.” According to Daniel A. Wagner, Director, Literacy Research Center at the University of Pennsylvania, over one billion individuals worldwide, nearly 25% of today’s youth and adults can’t read. Even fewer comprehend numeracy and far fewer have access to electronic superhighway. “Achieving a literate society in which adults can fully participate in the workplace, community, and family will be a major challenge for the world in the coming millennium”. Illiteracy is one of the major problems faced by the developing world, specially Africa and South-East Asia and has been identified as the major cause of socio-economic and ethnic conflicts that frequently surface in the region. With the limited definition of ‘literacy’ being adopted for enumeration purposes, there has been concern on the content of a Mass Literacy program. The focus of mass literacy efforts is in terms of basics – the mechanics of reading and attention to computation (addition, subtraction, multiplication and division) in mathematics. It is recognized that these basics are not rooted in the goals of higher-order thinking – conceptualizing, inferring, inventing, testing, hypothesis and thinking critically. It is true that these literacy programs do not have in mind, literacy practice that would promote capacities for independent reasoning, of the kind sought by Third World socially minded pedagogues like Paulo Friere or the leading edge of reformers, business leaders and cognitive psychologists. A candid analysis of illiteracy’s political and cultural consequences throughout the population will necessitate in our seeking to move literacy expectations beyond a rudimentary ability to read, write and calculate. The recognition that ‘literacy’ has to be situationally relevant has given rise to the concept of ‘functional literacy’, which has been referred to by the Second Education Commission. The need to go into the broader aspect is for the purpose of determining the structure of the system. In devising the system, educational and psychological philosophies of Adler, Dewey, Wittgenstein, Chomsky and our own Mahatma Gandhi (in his basic education concept) and other experiences will come into play. Indeed, it is probably in recognition of this limited scope of literacy, that our Constitution makes a reference to education and educational opportunities and not to literacy.
Literacy is now part of the Human Rights Dialogue. Now most of the nations of the world have also accepted their obligation to provide at least free elementary education to their citizens. Article 26 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights declares:
“Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory. Technical and Professional education shall be generally available and higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit”.
This Right is also repeated in the UN Declaration of the Rights of the Child which seeks to ensure “Right to free and compulsory education at least in the elementary stages and education to promote general culture, abilities, judgment and sense of responsibility to become a useful member of society and opportunity to recreation, and play to attain the same purpose as of education”.
India has ratified the above, and these have thus the power of domestic laws. From the Human Rights perspective, constitutional guarantees arise automatically.
Investment potential on human capital has now been recognized. Economists had long assumed that the main component of a country’s productive wealth is physical assets (“produced assets”). But according to World Bank’s assessment for 192 countries, physical capital on average accounts only for 16% of total wealth. More important is natural wealth, which accounts for 20%. And more important still is human capital, which accounts for 64%. Literacy is now part of the Human Development Index. Government of India has also accepted this position, and one of the important components in the National Human Development initiative announced in the Union Budget 1999-2000 is education, forming also a component in the Prime Minister’s ‘Special Action Plan’.
By improving people’s ability to acquire and use information, education deepens their understanding of themselves and the world, enriches their minds by broadening their experiences, and improves the choices they make as consumers, producers and citizens. Education strengthens their ability to meet their wants and those of their family by increasing their productivity and their potential to achieve a higher standard of living. By improving people’s confidence and their ability to create and innovate, it multiplies their opportunities for personal and social achievement. Japan’s rapid industrialization after the Meiji Restoration was fuelled by its aggressive accumulation of technical skills, which in turn was based on the already high level of literacy and a strong commitment to education, especially the training of engineers.
In the field of Development Economics, literacy holds an important place as a parameter to measure development. It has been recognized that the “Human Development Index” (HDI) developed by UN is a measure of the overall development of the country. One of the three components used in the calculation of HDI is “Literacy” as it is a cumulative measure of several factors that contribute to human development. As per UN Development Report, 2000, India’s ranking in HDI is 128, with education index registering a low .55 due to a low adult literacy rate of 55.7 and combined primary, secondary and tertiary gross enrolment of 54. In their book, “Development Reconsidered”, Owens and Shaw have stated: “It is self-evident that literacy is a basic element of a nationwide knowledge system. The most important element of a literacy program is not the program itself, but the incentive to become and remain literate.” When people are able to believe that they can improve their lives through their own efforts, when they realize that some newly created opportunity is denied to them by illiteracy, then they will learn how to read, write and count.”
Education is thus viewed as an integral part of national development. Development is not only ‘economic growth’; rather, it ‘comprehended opportunities to all people for better life’ with ‘man as end of development and instrument’. Education and development are linked in a variety of ways. First, education, as stated earlier, is a human right, the exercise of which is essential for individual development and fulfillment. The capacity of an individual to contribute to societal development is made possible and enhanced by his or her development as an individual. In this light, education is also a basic need. It is also a means by which other needs, both collective and individual, are realized. Thus, education is the instrument by which the skills and productive capacities are developed and endowed. All these interrelationships of education and development are inseparable from the conception of educational policies. It is in the second order of ‘action’ that problems arise. The problems of illiteracy will not solve by itself in the flux of time. Without organized literacy action, illiteracy will continue to stagnate indefinitely along with the associated ills of poverty and underdevelopment. Experience has shown that determined literacy action is the exception and that more often, literacy campaigns are ‘turned on’ and ‘turned off’ in line with short-term policy changes. Hence the need for Constitutional guarantees. In the light of the discussions earlier, Literacy and Education have overlapping connotations both as an engine of socio-economic progress as well as for individual growth. An attempt at serious semantic distinction between is not followed here in the discussions.
Concern for literacy arises from the clearly related question as to whether educational expansion has created the conditions for freer individual expression, for a more active participation in the body politic, for what Pericles called “sound judges of policy”, and for greater respect for human welfare and dignity. Many feel, as indeed the Constitution makers felt, that education is its own reward- i.e. the more one is educated, the greater is his possibility of developing these qualities. Thus, they believed that the future and hope of mankind lie in educational advancement and a Welfare State has to make suitable provision for the same. Education is valuable by itself for discovering “the treasure within”, as has been mentioned by UNESCO. As stated in the Constitution, the State has to set for itself a Welfare goal. It should, therefore, take upon itself all activities and steps to move towards this goal. Most major classical economists have argued by their extensive earlier writings the need for State provision, under the proposition that the private market would under provide education. E. G. West (1965), in a thought-provoking book on education, argues that a strong case can be made for State intervention in education (but not for direct State provision of education) on two counts, namely, the externality effects of education and the alleged incompetence or ignorance of parents. Advocates of State education in the past have usually rested their case predominantly on the two extra economic considerations of equality of opportunity and social cohesion.
The major advantages of the census data are that they are based on complete enumeration and are, therefore, more reliable than projections and estimates. Further, they provide an opportunity to observe trends over a period of time and draw meaningful conclusions to facilitate planning. Some of the salient features of the current Census data are given in the Table. As stated earlier, a little above three-fourths of our male population have been found to be literate and a little above half of our female population have also been found to be literate as per this Census report.
Census 2001Population of India : A little over 1,027,000,000. This figure represents one-sixth of the population of the entire planet. Growth rate of Population: has fallen by 2.52 per cent over the previous decade Literacy Rate: At All India level: 65.38 % overall; male literacy: 75.96 % Female literacy: 54.28%. This represents an increase in overall literacy per centage by 13.75% from last Census. The corresponding increases in Male and Female literacy are: 11.83 % and 14.99 %. Sex Ratio: Has gone up to 933 from the earlier Census figure of 927 |
The increase of 13.75% in literacy rate in the last one decade marks recognition of the combined efforts in the field of elementary education and adult education through the total literacy campaigns. These figures are interesting in another sense as they represent crossing of another threshold in the Development field. Literacy and economic development may not be directly linked as many studies in the Developing World would indicate. To quote Owens and Shaw: “Literacy has suffered by being treated by the advocates of universal literacy as a kind of panacea for whatever they conceive to be the ailments of an undeveloped country. However, marginal people see no reason to be literate. Literacy does not provide access if people are not organized to participate in development. For this reason, there appears to be little relationship between literacy and economic growth. When the Age of Development began, the rate of literacy in the Philippines and some Latin countries was considerably higher than in Taiwan and Korea and is still much higher than in Egypt or Comilla county of Bangladesh. Argentina and Chile combine exceptionally high literacy rates, by Third World standards, with a very low economic growth rates.” Having stated this, the point remains that there is, however, a threshold requirement. A distinguished economist, Dr. Malcolm Adiseshiah states: “There is however, a threshold of somewhere around fifty per cent of the population being literate for Development to take place as no country has ever achieved an industrial growth with a literacy rate below fifty per cent…If we want the National Development portrayed in our Draft Plan, we must reach the minimum Adult Education threshold”
Apart from the overall literacy figures, even distribution of these literacy figures, show that all the States excepting for Bihar (which also only falls marginally below at 47.27) have achieved this threshold. Even in Bihar, the male literacy figure is above the 50 per cent figure. In a macro sense, this achievement is encouraging. The other statistic regarding the fall on population growth is also significant and relevant for our purpose as it will mean lesser provision necessary to be made in the Plan budget for new enrolments, lesser in the sense of incremental addition required for school teachers, etc. While quantitative expansion in specific areas at least in the elementary section may still be necessary, its rate will now be less with the control of population increases and more Plan funds can now be diverted to other areas of necessity within the elementary education budget.
THE RAMIFICATIONS OF ILLITERACY ON HUMAN MIND:
This dissertation project explores the theme of literacy in a recent novel, The reader, by the German author Bernhard Schlink. Drawing both on literary analysis and on the insights of the “new literacy studies”, the paper argues that the depiction of illiteracy contained in the novel is problematical in two main ways. First, there are a number of textual inconsistencies regarding the definition and portrayal of illiteracy. Second, the novel provides a questionable account of the relationship between literacy and an individual's capacity for moral and aesthetic judgment, especially in the context of debates about the Holocaust. It deals with the difficulties which subsequent generations have in comprehending the Holocaust; specifically, whether a sense of its origins and magnitude can be adequately conveyed solely through written and oral media. This question is increasingly at the center of Holocaust literature in the late 20th and early 21st century, as the victims and witnesses of the Holocaust die and its living memory begins to fade.
Schlink's book was well received in his native country, and also in the United States, winning several awards. The novel was a departure from Schlink's usual detective novels. It became the first German novel to top The New York Times bestseller list. It has been translated into 37 languages and has been included in the curricula of college-level courses in Holocaust literature and German language and German literature. A 2008 film adaptation directed by Stephen Daldry was nominated for five Academy Awards.
The Reader is an emotional/romantic film revolving around an erotic affair which resurfaces later into love. The film is also about the plight shared by Nazi-holocaust guards who were charged for the crimes committed by their employers. The Reader revolves around Michael Berg , a lawyer ( Portrayed by Ralph Fiennes ) , David Kross , who plays the character of young Michael and Hanna Schmitz ( Kate Winslet ).
In the year 1958, fifteen year old Michael berg is down with Scarlet fever and accidentally meets 36 year old Hanna, who attends to him. After being cured of the illness, Michael meets Hanna again. This time the casual encounter ends up in a sexual liaison. There after Michael regularly meets Hanna who reads to her famous works of literature. When Hanna gets promoted in the company she works, she moves to another house without an appraisal, much to the surprise of Michael. With time, Michael puts behind his past involving Hanna. Eight years later ,as a student of law , he witnesses a court-room trial where in some Nazi guards are being accused of letting 300 Jews die in a burning church . Michael after spotting Hanna among the accused, develops a keen interest in the progress of the trial. The other guards accuse Hanna of writing the report and supervising the extermination. Hanna, choosing not to disclose her shame which upon revelation can pronounce her not guilty, admits to the false charges. Subsequently, she gets a life time imprisonment for her confession. Michael, sitting in the audience who knows the secret is stunned by the manner in which she chooses to confess rather than disclosing the dirty little secret.
In prison, Michael sends her tapes to overcome her social problem. After a period of 30 years, Hanna meets Michael. Later, one day before her release date Hanna commits suicide and leaves him a note along and a tea-tin with cash in it.The film is about a mundane fling which transforms into tabooed love involving an older woman and her relatively young lover. It is a story about the unacknowledged affection, the held back emotions (In the later part) and the ignominy of living with a social problem. Besides, the story also addresses the contemporary issue of accusing the Nazi guards for supervising the killings of hundreds of Jews. On the contrary, they were only being dutiful and following orders of the Nazi regime .As the author of the book, Mr. Schlink writes “the pain I went through because of my love for Hanna was, in a way, the fate of my generation, a German fate.
The movie does full justice to the book, a best-seller, by breathing life into all the characters with absolute artistry .Kate Winslet who plays the role of Hanna Schmitz portrayed her character with such elegance and impossible comportment that she won an Academy award for this role. Even with folds on her skin and grey hair she exudes a personal charm which happens to soothe the audience. The question that creeps through the minds of million is can illiteracy outweigh the shame of mass murder? All through the movie Hanna is consumed by her shame of being illiterate, something which Michael is able to transform into passion at two separate times in Hanna's life. The first time he does it inadvertently while satiating his own juvenile sexual fantasies, but the second time he does it with the awareness of a friend who knows how much stories, and reading them, mean to Hanna. Clearly, the writer wants to send a message here that reading adds new dimension to human awareness and is therefore crucial to our decision making ability. It is particularly important to those of us who live alone, or who are private/reserved by nature and share little with the world, except vicariously through books and other multimedia productions. In some of our 'developed nations' we often take literacy for granted, and this movie, "The Reader", takes us back in time to show us a horrific impact of illiteracy in Hanna's world of post war Germany. Illiteracy is definitely the villain in the story since it holds potential to bring untold shame and horror to those who house it; like it did to Hanna and the other prison guards in "The Reader”. I may have looked too long and too deep into this movie so you may want to watch it simply because Kate Winslet gives an amazing performance in this movie as a reluctant seductress, a heartless guard, and a confused war criminal with an indescribable passion for books. I was a trifle hesitant to post on this interpretation. However, it points so aptly that illiteracy is really a metaphor for failure; I would extend it further it is a metaphor for stagnation even death (of sorts). It's the suffocation of independent input to the human brain thereby deadening its ability to make discretionary choices.
The propaganda that was carried out during the holocaust which also prevented independent input to the Germans at the time, and they made do with all the propaganda literature they got, and almost willingly became guilty of having let the Holocaust happen. This act is a true depiction of effective oral functionality within an universe of communications governed by texts. Texts thereby emerged as a reference system both for everyday activities and for giving shapes to many larger vehicles of explanation. The rapprochement between oral and written consequently plays a decisive role in the organization of experience. The results can be seen in set of dichotomies based upon linguistic considerations which lie beneath of a number of the period’s key cultural issues. On the negative side, the preliterate, who managed without texts, was redefined as an illiterate that is as a person who did not understand the grammar and syntax of a written language. Literacy thereby becomes a factor in social mobility; the low orders who could neither read or write is increasingly influenced by those who could. On the positive note, the revival of writing adds a new dimension to cultural life, very often as noted, incorporating the oral into real or textual framework.
