Posts Tagged literacy rate

Aiming to Eradicate Poverty – Provide Free Education

If any nation, society or charitable institution is setting up a target to eradicate poverty, then it should start with providing the facility of free education. Education is the necessary key that will unlock the golden gates of the future. It empowers, enlightens people, and enables them to understand the circumstances and take appropriate actions accordingly.

It’s a well known thing that knowledge is power. If so much power and importance is invested in knowledge which can be gained through education, then a civil society must see that all of their populations do have access to this empowering tool. To think that literacy rate in every society or country will remain cent percent is to wish for an ideal situation. But striving to achieve that target should not be forgotten for a second.

It’s the poor people who remains deprived of education, as they are not allowed the circumstances in life to choose education. They have to work instead of going to school or letting their kids go to school. Fire of hunger definitely overpowers the fire of knowledge. How would they make their both ends meet is a bigger concern for them than complete the schooling. The kids of the poor people don’t get the chance to choose the path of education as they too don’t have that situation at home that they could afford education. It seems better to them to support the family instead of pursuing school.

Some of these kids do the work of an adult to earn money to support the finances of the family. But lots of these poor children get diverted to anti-social activities. Some of them choose to work honestly but others choose to become small time thieves, pick- pockets. These small time crimes will lead them to do bigger crimes later in life. So, it’s better to check these things at an early age. And it can be done through one way only: that’s by providing free education.

A developing nation like India with over a billion population does need to act fast to provide free education to poor children. But the state administration’s initiatives needs to be supported by charitable organizations or by some other noble way to establish more and more schools where free education is made available to the deprived children.

The Gift and Importance of Literacy

Through most of the history of the world, literacy was a privilege, something that only the nobility, the gentry or the clergy had access to. The spread of literacy in the 15th century, after the wide spread of the printing press in Europe, was the most profound change in society that’s ever been recorded. It’s arguably more important than the development of agriculture or modern anti-sepsis.

The goal of promoting literacy is behind the idea of tax payer funded public schools. A citizen who votes in a republic needs to be able to read to understand the issues of the day, and that was as true in 1809 as it is in 2009. Learning to read is the foundational skill needed to succeed in school, in commerce, and in civil society.

The United States has a 90% literacy rate, and has, at times, had a 99% literacy rate. Most reading instruction happens when students are in the first through fourth grades in the United States, and focuses on grammar, reading comprehension and similar issues.

The principle way people learn how to read is by phonics. There have been two generations of students who were taught to read by trendy methods, but phonics – learning how to sound out a word and figure out its meaning from the various parts of it – has been consistently proven to be the most effective.

People who cannot read suffer social stigmas – they’re called ‘dummies’, or ‘idiots’. Sadly, this makes them even less likely to try to remedy their lack of reading ability by taking classes as a teenager or an adult to get up to an effective reading level. Anyone can be taught to read; there is no window or age after which this vital skill cannot be taught. And it is a vital skill – even being a retail clerk requires the ability to read. Being an informed voter requires being able to read. Being able to use credit – and manage money – requires being able to read.

If you’re a parent and want to encourage your children to learn to read, there’s one very simple thing you can do for them. Make time, when they’re young, to sit and read to them, and read with them. Make some of their cherished childhood memories ones of sitting in Mom or Dad’s lap and being read to while it’s comfy and warm; this helps build the association between reading and curiosity and reading and knowledge, while giving good parental bonding too.

If you know of an older person – a teenager or adult – who cannot read, approach them on it and connect them with the Literacy Council of the United States which offers free adult reading education programs, most of them phonics based, and with curriculums that are geared towards practical knowledge. It’s a gift that keeps on giving, in job opportunities, and in helping their children appreciate the benefits of reading.