Why does the world have that much illiteracy rate? How do we defeat and finish it?

Can you imagine yourself in a completely different country where you don’t know how to communicate, read or write in their language? How desperate you will feel and how helpless you will be in that situation, you wouldn’t be able to understand the sign boards and read the directions, you won’t be able to buy something when you might want to because you won’t be able to understand what to buy when you wouldn’t be able to read what’s written on the product or what is it for. Just like that an illiterate can be differentiated from a literate as an illiterate person can’t read or write while the latter can do both. But literacy can’t be justified in just reading or writing, literacy is a compulsory requirement in the modern world, it is essential to be able to survive in the world and to compete with others in your specified field of work.

An educated person who has been to school, college, and university can understand the world around them better than a person who has never been to any of these, they will not be able to survive the way others would do, and they will be liable and dependent on others and the more knowledgeable ones can work things out for themselves, they would be independent that will benefit them in achieving their goals without any restrictions. An illiterate person can be knowledgeable but can’t be practical enough to use it, they can lack in goals as they would barely be surviving in the coming days their sole focus would be on just how to survive with the bare minimum because life is getting competitive leaving everyone behind it who are not capable of fighting for survival in this world.

REASONS FOR EXCESSIVE ILLITERACY RATE:

Many reasons can be taken into account for illiteracy increasing every year. According to recent statistics, there are around 781 million illiterate adults over the age of 15 in the world and women cover approximately the 2/3rd of this index. About 67 million children do not have access to primary school education and another 72 million miss out on secondary school education. The cost of illiteracy to the global economy is estimated at USD 1.2 trillion. 

Illiterate people earn 30%-40% less than the people who can vocalize their rights and have the skills to be compatible to do the tasks against them. Poor illiteracy is another thing in which some might have reached high school but couldn’t be able to get through anymore and quit their studies for multiple reasons such as,

• You are a slow learner.
• You got caught up in problems at home.
• Financial instability.
• You were not interested in studying.
• Your parents didn’t push you further to study anymore.
• Conveyance issues.
• Lack of resources.

I have seen people being ashamed of their illiteracy at times like shopping in a store and hesitating to ask questions that might get them to feel low that they couldn’t understand what’s written on the product, such as food items and they buy the wrong stuff because they couldn’t understand the label, not everyone can ask for help, even I was not being able to ask for help, I felt like everybody thought that I am unable to study or do the assignments when I asked do my assignment UK with me as I was finding it difficult since Math wasn’t my favorite subject. Illiterate people can get in potential danger, like if they got a medical prescription and they can’t read what it says then how would they get cured when they don’t know what medicine to take if they choose the wrong ones, they might get bad consequences. 

The following are some reasons that can explain and can potentially answer the question as to why the world has that much literacy and how we defeat and finish it:

POVERTY:

According to Mortenson (1998) children living in poverty are the least likely to become literate. While the other children tend to get the best education possible because their parents are educated enough and earn enough so that they can provide their kids with better education and get them ready for future opportunities. But the opposite happens in the poor household where there are not enough earnings for them to manage till the month’s end so getting their children towards literacy is not their priority. Poverty tends to break society into splits and the ones in poverty suffer the most because they don’t have the guidance and knowledge of how to tackle things and they get low wages jobs because of their lack of skills such as technology and language which is essential to have if you want to survive the modern world. People who live in poverty lack access to education, books, and resources that can help them in their learning process.

Poverty creates barriers to accessing education like unavailability of transportation, insufficient school facilities, and most definitely a need for children to work and support their families. 

Here are a few strategies that can defeat and finish it:

• Access to education needs to be improved, every child in a country has the right to good and quality education, so we need to ensure that every kid has access to it no matter if they are poor or not. And to make this work we need to make policies like we need to open free schools or subsidized school fees, and scholarships.
• We need to get to the roots of poverty and find out what causes it and deal with it completely, poverty is caused by unemployment, low wages, and lack of access to healthcare. 
• We must do adult literacy programs and make them learn to read and write as they must not have the opportunity to go to school or college to do so. 
• Bring technology to the table for better communication and better learning opportunities for students and teachers. Nowadays technology plays a vital role in the development and promotes access to information. By using technology you can get access to a numerous amount of knowledge and can benefit from that, such as if I know how to operate technology I can get anything I want like if I want to search for someone who can write my dissertation for me UK I just need to type it and then I need to find the right website for me. Technology can bring so much to you and you can develop yourself by having access to it and you can learn tons of things.

LACK OF EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES: 

GEM Report and the UIS show that 244 million children and youth between the ages of 6 and 18 worldwide were still missing out on school. The top five countries with the most children excluded from education are India, Nigeria, Pakistan, Ethiopia, and China. Lack of resources and access causes distress among individuals and communities, which leads to the inability to meet daily basic needs.

We need to improve the access to educational resources by developing an effective policy that should be made by governments of such countries to counter the issue it can be done by developing an infrastructure that is a necessary requirement to support education, and one can do that by,

• Building schools and providing essential equipment such as books, computers, and other learning resources.
• Target the areas where there is next to no access to resources of any kind such as rural areas where people aren’t educated at all and don’t have a standard living as that causes their lack of awareness to let their children study and get educated.
• Governments can also imply literacy by introducing literacy laws that would be compulsory for children to attend school and that way parents will be required to send them to schools.
• More schools should be public with no school fees that way if someone is unable to send their children because of that issue then it will be resolved eventually.

CONFLICT AND INSTABILITY:

Illiteracy can actually cause instability and conflict in such a way that it has the potential to destroy a country as the people who don’t have the mindset of an educated person can easily get manipulated by the high command people who tend to become their leaders and country officials that can become a disadvantage as not every ruler rules to benefit their people, some can be bad news for the country and to differentiate between good and bad it is essential for a person to get educated on what the incentives of other person tell you and how to have a voice against people and how to have a mindset of your own which can differentiate between good and bad. 

These things can result in a political conflict as well as can create a fiasco, this can also lead to feelings of disenfranchisement and marginalization due to the lack of access to the information or following misleading info being unaware of it.

Economic distress can also erupt if there are more people in the country that are illiterate, they wouldn’t have the skills and understanding of their jobs as a literate has, and this can limit economic opportunities, leading to poverty and inequality which will eventually contribute to social conflict and unrest and increase in crime.

There are several strategies to counter conflict and instability,

• Governments should prioritize education.
• We can improve and promote literacy by engaging communities and providing literacy campaigns by involving local leaders, educators, and parents.
• By providing access to information.
• By addressing inequality and poverty.
• Can use technology to promote education.

LACK OF GOVERNMENT FUNDING:

Government funding plays a vital and important role in creating a developed country and emerging as a competition among the world fighting for dominance. Children and youngsters are the future of the world and we need to equip them, support them and provide them with everything they need to make the world a better place to live for the human race. 

The lack of government funds is a huge cause and a reason for the illiteracy rate being uncontrolled. There are multiple strategies that can be followed by governments to defeat and finish the excessive amount of illiteracy rate in the world.

• Engaging the private sector in promoting literacy and combatting illiteracy, governments can do partnerships with the private sector and can leverage their resources, expertise, and funding to support literacy programs. 
• By engaging local leaders, education providers like teachers and social workers, and parents, communities can work together and bring education, promote it, and create a learning culture.
• Governments should add education to their budget allocation and can prioritize it even if there are not many resources by doing it a sense of assurance that the education sector will get something at least gets boosted and it becomes easier to promote education and literacy among the assured people. 
• If the government lacks resources in developing countries, it will help a lot by seeking foreign aid and assistance to manage things better. They can align themselves with international organizations to secure funding for education and literacy programs.