Illiteracy & Poverty Go Hand In Hand

ILLITERACY AND POVERTY GO HAND IN HAND

( by Sravani Gokaraju )

An American author and activist, Coretta Scott King once said that “There is no reason why a nation as rich as ours should be blighted by poverty, disease and illiteracy.” This statement holds very true. Illiteracy and poverty are both crises that have been existing all over the world since time immemorial, and both, even though are not the sole reasons of each other’s existence, still co-exist. First, let us understand what poverty and illiteracy are. Poverty is a state in which a person lacks the basic amount of money or material possessions to lead a minimum standard of living, making it difficult to meet basic essential needs like hunger, clothing, shelter, etc. Illiteracy is the inability to read or write, leading to ignorance in things as simple as food and nutrition.

Education makes a person learn and develop skills that are helpful to survive this competing and fast-moving world. So, a person who is illiterate will not be able to read, speak, write and use computer skills in their daily life. This will make them ineligible for a lot of jobs that are mostly sought after and pay well. They will only be eligible for daily menial work, automatically putting them at a disadvantage because not only do they do need to do more physical work that pays them very less, but they will also be working without any job security.

Illiterates are usually not open to accepting change or learning new skills, making them fall behind in this ever-evolving world. Their ignorance can affect even the generations to come as they might not be liable to doing any work other than the one that their forefathers and family have been into. For instance, a family who has always been into weaving would want the upcoming generations to continue working in the same field instead of something else. Also, given their financial difficulties, a lot of them would prefer their children to work, earn and contribute as much as they can to the family instead of getting educated. In times like these where technology is slowly but surely taking over the world, it is difficult for people to sustain their jobs. When even skilled and educated people are already having their jobs at stake, it is not before too long that illiterate people also lose their jobs.

In fact, in the current pandemic that the entire world is facing, illiterates have already been suffering financially. Due to the lockdown that has been imposed by the government, illiterates have lost their daily work, making it very difficult for them to make ends meet, whereas educated people with jobs are able to at least work from the comfort of their houses or are able to survive on any savings that they have accumulated up until then. Since illiterates cannot afford healthy and sanitised living and working situations and surroundings, and not being unable to read and use technology, a lot of them are even unaware of the precautions that need to be taken to avoid Corona. All of this makes them more prone to the virus than others.

Another major issue caused by illiteracy is that they do not know how to earn and spend well. This leads to having no savings. They barely scrape through every day with the money that they earn. So saving even a little for the future is impossible. Also, due to their ignorance stemming from illiteracy, family planning is something they might not be aware of. This can cause a lot of problems as the little income they earn would not suffice feeding a big family. Hence, if an emergency were to ever come up in the form of heath issue, death of the bread winner, pandemic, etc., they would not be

able to face it financially, putting their entire family at stake. Their inability to read and use technology might also prevent them from being aware of all the government schemes and the help that NGOs are offering.

All this proves that Illiteracy and poverty go hand in hand. It is these that lead to other socio-economic problems, high growth rate of population, high mortality rate, low expectancy rate, child labour, etc. Their ignorance and lack of education makes them have a very backward and narrow-2minded approach to life leading them to still follow old belief systems like child marriage, dowry, etc. The desperation and frustration to get out of poverty and the lack of education even makes some people not differentiate the good from the bad, making them commit crimes like robbery, murder, domestic violence, rape etc. Illiteracy and poverty are a vicious cycle that are prevalent even in the most developed countries. A country can be called truly developed only when it has high literacy rate and low poverty. The only solution to this is literacy. Hence, measures need to be taken in order to reduce illiteracy as much as possible. A lot of NGOs are coming forward to help. As citizens and fellow humans, we too, should do our bit by taking part in NGOs and other social service works to educate them.

Disclaimer:-

The opinions expressed in this article are the personal opinions of the author. The facts and opinions appearing in the article do not reflect the views of Light de Literacy and LDL does not assume any responsibility or liability for the same.