“Literacy is about empowerment and gains for individuals, communities, and societies. Literacy is a precondition to achieving our ambitions on competitiveness, healthy living, sustainability, social inclusion, and active citizenship.”— Princess Laurentien, UNESCO special envoy on literacy

The literacy gap did not start with the novel coronavirus pandemic. However, the pandemic took a bad situation and made it worse. As the international community moves beyond the initial wave of the pandemic-induced school closures, regrettably, academic normality remains out of reach for many students. This year’s observation of International Literacy Day has taken on added significance, given that schools are open and face-to-face instruction is once again the teaching modality of choice.

Each year UNESCO marks International Literacy Day on September 8. The day is set aside to raise awareness on the issues surrounding adult and child literacy.

Literacy is the ability to identify, understand, interpret, create, communicate, and compute, using printed and written materials associated with varying contexts. Literacy involves a continuum of learning to enable individuals to achieve their goals, develop their knowledge and potential, and participate fully in their community and wider society.

Since 1967 International Literacy Day has been celebrated annually to remind world leaders, influencers, and the general public of the current status of adult literacy and learning, the importance of literacy as a matter of dignity and human rights, and to advance the agenda toward a more literate and sustainable society.

In 2015 the UN adopted its sustainable development goals to mobilise efforts to eradicate poverty and inequalities across the world. Improving literacy rates is integral to the achievement of these goals.

Gender Gap

Of the roughly 781 million adults worldwide who cannot read or write, nearly two-thirds are female. This disparity is particularly noticeable in less-developed countries in which women are faced with increased vulnerability and are expected to stay at home and care for the house and children while the men go off to work. The developed nations of the world have much higher literacy rates with smaller gaps, if any, between the genders. According to the World Literacy Foundation, illiteracy costs the global economy $1.5 trillion annually.

The Jamaica Education Transformation Commission (JETC) report by Professor Orlando Patterson indicated troubling levels of inadequacy in literacy. The JETC report showed that most students at the primary level were barely literate. According to the JETC, the 2019 Primary Exit Profile (PEP) exam revealed that 33 per cent of students cannot read or can barely do so; 56 per cent of students cannot, or can barely, write; and 58 per cent of students cannot, or can barely, find information on a topic.

In the aftermath of the pandemic there must be a redoubling of efforts to close the literacy gap. According to UNESCO, nearly 24 million learners might never return to formal education, of which 11 million are projected to be girls and young women. In order to ensure no one is left behind we need to enrich and transform the existing learning spaces through an integrated approach and enable literacy learning from the perspective of lifelong learning. This year’s International Literacy Day will be celebrated under the theme ‘Transforming Literacy Learning Spaces’ and will be an opportunity to rethink the fundamental importance of literacy learning spaces to build resilience and ensure quality, equitable, and inclusive education for all.

HISTORY OF INTERNATIONAL LITERACY DAY

Although much progress has been made in improving literacy rates in the more than 50 years since the first International Literacy Day, illiteracy remains a global problem. It is estimated that more than 750 million adults around the world cannot read. The scourge of illiteracy spares no nation or culture on Earth, including the United States, where an estimated 32 million American adults are illiterate.

International Literacy Day was first conceived at the World Conference of Ministers of Education on the Eradication of Illiteracy held in Tehran, Iran, in 1965. The following year UNESCO took the lead and declared September 8 as International Literacy Day, with the primary purpose being “…to remind the international community of the importance of literacy for individuals, communities, and societies, and the need for intensified efforts towards more literate societies”. One year later the global community accepted the challenge of ending illiteracy by participating in the first International Literacy Day.

BARRIERS TO LITERACY

As a society we need to pay more attention to the notion of emergent literacy. Emergent literacy is the idea that children grow into reading and writing with no real beginning or ending point.

Sadly, as a people we have not done well in this regard. As a result, this vacuum has provided a fertile environment for the construction of barriers to literacy, and the main barrier to Jamaica achieving a 100 per cent literacy level is our inability to develop and promote a reading culture. The Jamaican society is very much an oral society, which is clearly a feature of our African heritage. While we should not discount our predisposition toward our oral tradition, we also need to encourage our citizenry to document and read.

Additionally, there exists a culture which tells boys that reading is anti-masculine and, sadly, this subculture, which is reinforced by popular culture, has turned many of our boys from education in general and reading in particular. This lack of motivation for reading must be addressed with urgency.

Disturbingly, boys who display school smarts are often ridiculed as effeminate by peers and even adults in areas where male academic excellence is typically devalued. It is almost as if manhood and masculinity have been hijacked by a thug culture far removed from education. Our boys must see men reading. It’s a pity that so few men are educators. Unfortunately, this, too, is rooted in a culture that views teaching as nurturing and, therefore, feminine.

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN LITERACY AND POVERTY

Poverty and illiteracy tend to go hand in hand. Education is often less accessible in poverty-stricken areas. Moreover, even when education is available, a struggling family might need their children to work and earn money instead of going to school. Most of the countries with the lowest literacy rates are located in South Asia, West Asia, and Sub-Saharan Africa, regions which comprise most of the poorest countries in the world.

IN PURSUIT OF CONTENT LITERACY

As students transition from primary to the secondary level the focus turns from learning how to read to using reading to learn. This shift in focus is commonly referred to as reading in the content area. Content area reading is the reading that a person (usually a student) needs to understand and function in particular subject area.

Unfortunately, in many schools there is a deficit of reading specialists. However, all teachers across the curriculum and grade levels can play a role in teaching students to use reading skills and strategies to learn the content of the subjects in order to become independent readers and learners. Educators can specifically provide students with instructions that promote content area vocabulary development and familiarise students with the structure of expository text.

Research has indicated how important literacy is on a personal level as well as for sustainable development. As the international community pauses to reflect on International Literacy Day, we all need to examine ourselves to see how best we can contribute to assisting in the promotion of literacy in the spaces we occupy. It in only by engaging in a collective effort that we will see the transformation of literacy learning spaces ballooning into full-fledged learning outcomes for those struggling with issues surrounding literacy. Oftentimes there is some level of stigma associated with being illiterate, and this tends to prevent those in need from coming forward to accept the necessary help in becoming literate. There must be a global effort to dismantle those areas which have historically created barriers for the empowerment of women and girls.

The engagement of social media is also very critical in creating avenues of literacy. It would be useful for public-private partnerships to construct literacy labs at more of our schools, especially those in rural and semi-rural areas where access is a problem.

The society owes it to the next generation to do all it can to engender and cultivate a culture and atmosphere conducive to the achievement of all forms of literacy. On this International Literacy Day let us recognise the importance of learning spaces in building resilience and ensuring quality, equitable, and inclusive education for all as our children return to school.

In the words of former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, “Literacy is a bridge from misery to hope. It is a tool for daily life in modern society. It is a bulwark against poverty and a building block of development.”

Wayne Campbell is an educator and social commentator with an interest in development policies as they affect culture and/or gender issues. Send comments to the Jamaica Observer or waykam@yahoo.com.