The Third World—Closing the Illiteracy Gap?
By “Awake!” correspondent in Nigeria
MORE than 800 million people—a third of the world’s adult population—cannot read these words. They are illiterate. And in Africa the literate population is only about 40 percent. Nevertheless, educational opportunities are increasing in African nations. Nigeria, for example, has thousands of primary and secondary schools, and more than 20 universities. Yet illiteracy persists.
North Africa has had literate communities for thousands of years. The influence of North African Muslims also brought literacy to sub-Saharan Africa. Literacy, however, was generally confined to those who did religious studies in Arabic. The vast majority of the others were unlettered.
European-style reading and writing began to be introduced by Portuguese traders as early as the 16th century. But it was in the 19th century that Roman Catholic and Protestant mission schools were established as the African territories came under colonial rule. As in Europe of that time, schooling was restricted to a few. Agricultural society was simply slow to recognize the value of book learning. Children were a vital part of the labor force, and communities were reluctant to release them to attend classes.
Religious Issues Intrude
Not wanting their children to come under a different religious influence, Muslim leaders likewise rejected attempts to introduce mission schools. The emirs of Northern Nigeria even resisted government schools, until the colonial administration agreed that religion would not be taught. Even then, girls were excluded from enrollment.
Gradually, though, improvements and expansion of the school systems came about. Girls’ schools were set up. Education penetrated into remote areas. But the bulk of the people remained untouched. Newly independent African nations thus inherited a population in which the masses were semiliterate or totally illiterate.
Recent Gains
Most governments have put forward programs for mass education. Tanzania’s population of about 20 million is now 60 percent literate. Ethiopia also reports good results. West African programs, though, have faltered under frequent changes of government and unstable economic conditions. Alfred Kwakye, a minister of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Ghana, observes that “the standard of achievement has fallen so much that the average child is hardly able to read and write any language at all after ten years in school.” Abiola Medeyinlo, a Nigerian university undergraduate, likewise laments that often “graduates from secondary schools cannot spell basic English words.”
Nigeria’s UPE (Universal Primary Education) scheme illustrates how free education plans are often hamstrung by inadequate financing as well as insufficient school buildings, teaching equipment, and qualified teachers. True, since the UPE program started in 1976, the primary school population increased from 8.2 million to 16.5 million in 1983. However, soon after the program’s inception, classes overflowed, and students found themselves either attending school on a shift system or taking lessons under trees. Many had to sit on stones or bring their own stools and other school equipment. Thousands of unqualified teachers were recruited to supplement the relatively few qualified ones. In spite of all of this, however, the literacy gap among Nigerian children is narrowing.
Similar problems plague Nigeria’s adult literacy programs. So communities, families, and teachers have had to set up their own self-help programs. Literate family members are encouraged to help illiterate ones on the basis of each one teach one. Religious bodies, social organizations, the media—radio, TV, and newspapers—are all called upon to have programs that will help people learn to read and write.
How, though, do you teach people who speak only one of the 250 Nigerian languages if the particular language has little or no reading material? And even if such people do learn to read and write, how can this new ability be sustained if they have no books or newspapers to read in their language? These are reasons why many do not bother to try to learn, and why some who do learn relapse into illiteracy. No wonder there are still some 27 million illiterate adults in Nigeria. Since such ones cannot help their children with their school lessons, these children, too, may well revert to illiteracy after leaving school.
Nigeria, nevertheless, has the rather ambitious goal of eliminating illiteracy by 1992. The past, however, has given little basis for such optimism.
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India’s Battle With School Corruption
Indian journalist Salome Parikh recently wrote: “Education in India is slowly taking on a bazaar atmosphere. It is a seller’s market and the indifference and corruption that appear as necessary corollaries of any scarcity situation are growing each year.”
A correspondent in India similarly reports: “There is wide-spread corruption. School officials enjoy a thriving business of accepting bribes and open ‘donations’ from parents who want to get their child into school. Cheating on the part of students is open and rampant. In the rural areas, teachers often disappear for 10 to 15 days at a time so that they can tend their farms. They reappear, though, when the supervisor comes to check the school. These supervisors then expect large bribes of wheat, rice, and sugar from villagers and teachers alike. In return, they write glowing reports as to how illiteracy is being wiped out in the village!”
[Box on page 9]
High School and the Third World
Writer Gene Maeroff observes that “there are not enough high schools to serve the population in many of the world’s countries. . . . The proportion of teen-agers in high school is
19 percent in Algeria,
18 percent in Brazil,
9 percent in Gambia,
28 percent in India,
20 percent in Indonesia,
38 percent in Iraq,
15 percent in Kenya,
17 percent in Pakistan,
26 percent in Thailand.”
[Pictures on page 9]
At school in Bhutan . . .
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FAO Photo/F. Mattioli
. . . and Swaziland
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FAO Photo/F. Botts