It should now be clear to us that being educated in reading and writing, especially in a 3rd world country like us, is a blessing for all, especially to the children who will soon be the movers and shakers of this society. It is a necessity and it should be a right given to all people. Unfortunately, due to financial problems plaguing some families, they are unable to provide this. This brings up the question, is illiteracy the cause of poverty? Or is poverty the cause of illiteracy? Does being poor directly translate to being illiterate? Or does being illiterate directly translate to being poor? Either way, we are in no way winning.
According to the 2005 Functional Literacy, Education, and Mass Media Survey conducted by the National Statistics Office (NSO), 48.4 million or 84% of the estimated 57.6 million Filipinos who are 10 to 64 years old are said to be "functionally" literate (Source: "8 out of 10 Filipinos are functionally literate" by D. Pepito, TODAY newspaper, February 17, 2005). For a 3rd world country like us, our literacy rate has risen from 72% to 90% in the last 30 years. Our improvements on paper pretty much lessens our worries, but we cannot deny that even though it looks like that on surveys, illiteracy still remains to be a problem.
It draws us to hopefully think, if these people living in the slums were to be much more literate than they currently are, would their lives be better? At first though, I'm sure it would be a resounding yes from a lot of us. Just think about it. Being literate will lead to people who would have a better understanding of laws and regulations, people would be able to think and contribute towards the betterment of a particular field because they will have a better grasp of the knowledge they are taking in. It would be a much more peaceful and behaved country wherein advancements in a lot of aspects for the Philippines would be an easier process because there would be more law-abiding citizens than rule-breaking ones.
Is poverty to blame for illiteracy? Is illiteracy to blame for poverty? Or is illiteracy to blame for itself? It could be either of these, but what's important is that we do our part to solve this problem for our benefit.
Sources:
Illiteracy is bad for us - so why don't we do something. (2010) Retrieved from: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/7897687/Illiteracy-is-bad-for-us-so-why-dont-we-do-something-about-it.html
UNESCO. (2005) Retrieved from: http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/philippines_statistics.html
I agree with you. We should do our part/s to solve illiteracy for the good of everyone. In general, poverty can indeed be counted as a cause and an effect at the same time but I believe that not all illiterates came from poor families and that they do not always end up in poverty.
ReplyDeleteIt's nice to imagine that people would be more disciplined/organized if they were to be (fully) literate, yet when this thought comes to my mind, I keep on thinking that being literate does not necessarily lead to being disciplined. Nevertheless, being literate gives means more opportunities and greater privileges. I can only hope that this global problem will be solved as soon as possible.